


Inside Your Light

by darter_blue



Category: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, DCU
Genre: Bruce is a closet cinnamon roll, Clark knows what's up, Feelings, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Low key medical procedures, M/M, Non invasive experimentation, POV Bruce Wayne, POV Clark Kent, Post-Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Temporary Character Death, unexpectedly fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:13:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24836707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darter_blue/pseuds/darter_blue
Summary: Superman isn't breathing. There's no pulse. There's a hole in his chest that Bruce can see right through, and were Superman human he would be dead. But he's not human - as Bruce is all too aware. A failing Bruce had tried to kill him for - has perhaps succeeded - is unquestionably responsible for the hero now lying broken before him.But Superman should be as indestructible as a god, Bruce won't accept that he's dead. There's something they're missing and Bruce trusts noone but himself to take the body, keep it safe, find the perfect combination of stimuli to bring the man inside it back from his state between life and death.The more time Bruce spends with the body, with Superman, with Clark, the closer he feels to a man he never let himself know. The more Bruce realises how much he'll lose if he can't find the answers to bring Clark back.Bruce had expected to solve a puzzle, to right a wrong, to save a life. He never expected to find redemption. He never expected to fall in love...
Relationships: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Comments: 39
Kudos: 199
Collections: Superbat Reverse Bang 2020





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mashimero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mashimero/gifts).



> Written for the Superbat Reverse Big Bang 2020
> 
> Prompted by the most compelling, rip-your-heart-right-out-of-your-chest art [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24842929) by [mashimero](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mashimero) (which I fought desperately for and danced a happy dance about when I found out I GOT IT)
> 
> Huge thanks to Mashi for being so supportive, reading through various iterations, giving invaluable feedback and being genuinely lovely to work with. And for the beautiful art that inspired this story from the very beginning.
> 
> Super special mention to [cattyk8](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cattyk8) for the last minute beta and cheerleading - I needed it!
> 
> And as always, biggest hugs to [Kalee60](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalee60) for helping shape this story - this somewhat angsty but strangely fluffy exploration of redemption that I hold close to my heart.
> 
> CONTENT WARNING:
> 
> This is a resurrection fic, so Clark is pretty banged up right from the start, but it's never very explicitly mentioned and SPOILER ALERT - this has a happy ending. Take from that what you will.
> 
> There are some descriptions of medical instrumentation and experimentation, but its very tame. Feel free to contact me on tumblr ([darter-blue](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darter-blue)) if you have questions about anything specific.

### Bruce

Bruce had always known he harboured a darkness. He knew that slowly, inevitably, it would eat away at him, like a sickness. Would ruin him.

He had tried to buy time. He had tried to put plans in place that would set the world right so that when he left it, it could survive without him.

He watched as the darkness spread, watched it push Dick away, watched it drive Jason into the ground, burn him alive.

Lately… He felt the walls closing in on him.

Stopping Superman had been his last hope. His last chance to leave the world with a legacy of justice. If he could rid them of the Alien, if he could bury it…

Maybe then he would be free to give in and let the world burn him too.

He should have known better, Alfred had warned him. Diana. He’d let Lex burrow into that darkness and harbour it, and because of it, he’d let this thing, this mutation, Lex’s monster, threaten everything he’d fought so hard to protect.

### Clark

Clark so rarely felt pain, it was hard to recognise at first.

He’d been angry - Bruce Wayne, The Bat - when he’d come to ask for his help. He wouldn’t listen, couldn’t be reasoned with and Clark was already so angry too. Lex had his mother. Everything was going wrong. Nobody trusted him. Nobody would listen. The fight had been avoidable but in the moment, he couldn’t see a way through it.

Even so, when the real threat appeared they tried to work together to bring it down. Clark had a responsibility. The pain, the anger, it had to be put aside. An opportunity for victory presented itself and he prepared himself to take it. His mother was safe, Bruce, finally (her name was the key, wasn’t it?) had let him breathe, let him speak and his mother would be safe. But only if he could stop this creature, this twisted, poisoned version of Zod, whom he would have to kill again. It was going to be his end.

He may not have recognised the pain, but he felt it. Tearing a hole through him. Killing him. But not soon enough that he couldn’t push the kryptonite into the heart of the beast. He could give them that, this world that would never love him. He could save them.

He had.

And then the pain was gone.

And so was Clark.


	2. The Body

### Bruce

His very first thought, as the bodies fell, Lex’s creature and Superman, was to make sure that the creature was dead. 

‘Diana!’

She looked to him, from over Superman, hand to his chest, with panic in her eyes. ‘What?’ she asked, afraid perhaps that Lex's creature lived still.

‘Help me make sure this thing is dead!’

‘Bruce, we need to stop the bleeding!’

Which confused him at first, his mind still full of the monster, of making sure the carnage was over. They wanted the creature to bleed, surely, until there was nothing left of it but a carcass. Only Diana wasn’t looking at the thing, wasn’t looking at Bruce, she was looking at her hands, and her hands were desperately trying to hold Superman’s chest together. And Bruce forgot about the monster, pulled forwards by the immediacy of Diana’s fear and Superman’s stillness. 

Bruce lost his footing, collapsing at Superman’s side, placing his hands over Diana’s, not sure that there would be any way to close the wound. The hole in Superman’s chest was big enough to reveal bones and flesh and displaced organs. It looked, to Bruce’s rudimentary understanding of anatomy, like a human man’s chest cavity. And just like a human man, broken open like he was, Clark was unmoving; no breath, no heartbeat.

‘Diana we need to get him away from the kryptonite,’ Bruce said. His modulator was failing, so he worked to keep his voice low and level.

She nodded and gently lifted the body. Bruce tried to clear a path through the debris to ease her way, but she leapt past him, landing far enough away that Bruce had to run to get to them. Lois was running to them too, tears tracking through the dirt on her cheeks. 

‘Clark no!’ she cried as she stumbled to them. Collapsing as Bruce had, her hands reaching for his face first, eyes deliberately ignoring the hole in his chest.

They all watched as nothing happened. The distance perhaps, not great enough. The damage, too severe. Nothing healed, the skin remained shredded, the bones shattered, the body still.

Bruce had been quietly (embarrassingly) awed by Superman in life. But Clark Kent, who’d been weakened by Bruce’s constant barrage of kryptonite weapons, who’d been exhausted by the onslaught of Bruce’s carefully calculated attacks, who had rammed the weapon painstakingly designed to kill a kryptonian far enough into Lex’s creature’s heart to finally stop it, compromised by the poison it contained and torn open as a result; Clark Kent was just a man. Men could bleed - so much blood, there was so much blood - and men could die. And it looked like, impossibly, everything that Bruce had wanted so fiercely, so thoughtlessly, would succeed to become his greatest failure. He had killed Superman. 

What stupid, foolish, hubris.

What had he done?

Diana looked up and Bruce searched her expression questioningly.

‘Helicopters,’ she said, looking back at Bruce. The decision was almost made for him, Lois unresponsive as she sat in shock and held Clark’s lifeless hand.

‘I need to get him out of here,’ he said to her, breaking through her grief.

‘What?’ Her eyes, now focused on Bruce, full of cold anger.

‘We can’t let them get a hold of his body,’ Bruce was sure he was right about this, ‘the last Kryptonian body they had access to is lying right over there,’ he gestured to the giant body of the monster over the mounds of broken buildings. 

Reluctantly Lois allowed Diana to carry Clark to the Batwing as Bruce worked frantically to bring the damaged systems back on-line. 

‘Diana, can you take Miss Lane and get her to safety.’

‘I can,’ she said, flatly, carefully, ‘But I’ll be finding you soon, Bruce, to make sure Clark is safe.’ Diana’s flawlessly cool expression sliced right through Bruce. 

‘Don’t just let him take him! Where is he taking him?’ Lois cried out, Diana worked to comfort her, but Lois was understandably distraught, ‘It’s his fault Clark is dead! Don’t you get that!’ she was screaming at Diana, who spared a glare for Bruce before turning back to Lois.

‘Whether it was or wasn’t,’ Diana must have some power in her voice, because Bruce could feel the second hand calming effects of it from where he placed Clark as gently as possible into the now running plane, ‘you must understand how important it is we leave here, and that nobody knows who or what Clark was.’

Lois, perceptively conciliated, nodded, though she still craned her head past Diana to watch Bruce stow Clark’s body. ‘I’ll keep your secret for you, Bruce,’ she spat his name like it was toxic, ‘but I want to know everything you do to him. I want to see it.’

Which was only fair. Bruce nodded in agreement and shut the door on the rest of her words. He didn’t need to hear them, whatever she had to say he already knew. The priority right now was to get Clark back to the cave so that he could figure out how to heal him.

Despite the hole in his chest, the blood, the stillness. Despite all evidence, Bruce refused to believe that Clark was dead. Clark was Superman (and yes, Bruce had researched his plan as meticulously as possible, yes, he had every intention that the spear would kill him, but it wasn't the spear that had impaled him in the end) and it simply _couldn’t_ be that easy to kill Superman. 

‘Alfred,’ he said into the comms, ‘I’m on my way back.’

‘Very good, Sir,’ he replied, ‘I’m thrilled to hear it.’ Bruce could hear every clipped syllable like a slap in the face.

‘I have Clark with me.’

‘You’re bringing him here, Master Wayne?’

‘He’s been compromised.’ Bruce said evenly, ‘He needs help.’

‘I’ll get the kit,’ Alfred replied, the 'What on earth I can do to help, I have no idea,’ was said more to himself than to Bruce.

‘That might not be necessary, get a table ready. Somewhere I can put him in the lab.’

‘Bruce, what’s happened?’ 

‘I’m minutes away, Alfred. Meet me at the plane.’

He turned his comms off and focused solely on getting the struggling navigation system to take him home. Alfred was waiting for him there, ready for an injured Clark, Bruce knew, and his face at first sight of the body was another blow to Bruce’s already fading reserve.

‘Bruce, no.’

‘Alfred, there’s no actual kryptonite left in him, I don’t believe this state is permanent.’

‘Master Wayne,’ Alfred put a gloved hand to Clark’s chest and looked up at Bruce, sad and tired, ‘This looks awfully permanent.’

Bruce ignored him to carry the body into the lab and rest him on the table Alfred had set up next to the bench full of their extensive equipment. His attempts to cut the uniform off Clark were unsuccessful - none of the scalpels or medical scissors in the lab capable of getting through the material. 

‘Master Wayne, you need to rest,’ Alfred said, placing a warm hand to Bruce’s arm, ‘There’s nothing you can do for him now.’

‘We’re missing something Alfred.’

‘Whatever that might be, Bruce, you need to rest. You can’t help him like this.’

‘I can’t just leave him here alone.’ 

Alfred looked at Bruce with a fondness that had been markedly missing for months. ‘I’ll sit with him, Master Bruce. Go, have a shower. Eat something. We’re not going anywhere.’

He was tired. And the stench of death had seeped into his skin after all the events of the evening. He nodded his agreement to Alfred, who looked grateful and terrified in equal measure, and left him with Clark, to peel himself out of the suit layer by layer, and step under the hand held, high pressure shower head in the cave's wetroom. Bruce adjusted the water temperature high enough to leave his skin red raw and sluice away as much of the night's filth as possible. 

He redressed in the under armour available down in the cave, and found Alfred quietly attempting to clean the wound in Clark's chest. Something in Bruce shattered at the sight of his best and only real friend in the world, so caring and careful, who had - as much as was in his power - begged Bruce not to take this path. If only he had listened. 

'Thank you, Alfred.'

'There's been no change yet, Sir.'

'Give me some time with him please.'

Alfred nodded and moved past Bruce with a gentle hand to his shoulder. It was rare that Alfred ever touched him except to patch him up. 'I shall bring you some food in an hour, Sir.' 

Bruce allowed the contact but turned away from the watchful eyes and towards the body on the table. He stood for an indeterminate amount of time, and stared at what was left of the man he had tried, and probably succeeded (no, he must _not_ think so), to murder in a grief fuelled rage. 

Where did he begin to fix this? He could, he would. He just needed to figure out where to start. He needed to take it back to the beginning. Start at zero. Work the problem. 

And if Bruce fell against the table, head in hand, heart in throat, breathing through the pain, it was no one's business but his own.

### Clark

The consciousness, if that was what it was, or soul, it felt the thought form and disappear into ether, existed and yet did not exist in a void of space. It felt nothing, Knew nothing, and let that feeling, the emptiness, wrap around itself and keep it safe. 

The voices; it was nice to hear the voices, but it let them wash over the self. Wash over it and pass it by. It was content to just float in the nothing and be free.

The place offered safety. Here, it was nothing and no one. But it was _safe_. So here it would remain.


	3. The Hypothesis

### Bruce

Fresh from a rushed flight to and from Kansas, Bruce had slept, eaten and showered again, most of that time with half a mind on where to begin with Clark.

Bruce understood the start of solving any good problem was a hypothesis. Bruce’s most simplified hypothesis, what he now sought to prove, was that Clark was not dead. That he could, given the right stimulation, be brought from his current inert state to a rejuvenated, healed, living version of himself. 

What he needed was to find that stimulation, the right combination of materials or events that would spur Clark's body to fix itself. 

Currently the body was in a state of something between life and death. It had been twelve hours and there was no rigor mortis, though pallor mortis had set in almost immediately post trauma, Clark's skin appearing a far paler grey than the warm ivory completion Bruce remembered from their previous encounters.

(That had really started the minute the kryptonite hit though, hadn't it, Bruce?). 

And though algor mortis set in early, Clark's body temperature eventually plateaued above what Bruce would have expected from a dead body. 

And then there were none of the follow on effects of pallor mortis, no pooling of the blood at the base of the body was observed. Bruce surmised that the blood had stopped flowing, but cells remained suspended within undamaged vessels with no sign of collapse. 

All of it helped fuel Bruce’s determination.

He dug through the stolen files from Luthor that documented the studies performed on the other kryptonian body. From there he mocked up some useful equipment. A kryptonite lined scalpel to cut away the uniform, Kryptonite lined sharps he could use to inject any necessary fluids or drugs. He collected small tissue samples from the wounded area (Bruce was far from a histologist, but keeping the samples correctly preserved gave him options for the future, Bruce needed to be prepared ). He observed that Clark was no longer bleeding - but that the wound had not closed at all. No breath, no heartbeat. He hooked him up to a heart monitor and checked his pupils. Though they were fixed and did not react to stimuli, they were not dilated. 

All Lex’s evidence suggested that the other kryptonian body had similarly failed to decompose, but remained dead - as much as that state could be defined by a lack of heartbeat, consciousness and breathing.

Luther had researched the fluid from within the Kryptonian craft, suggesting he had used it in some capacity to create the creature, though Bruce couldn't find much more than evidence of some conductive properties and living cells (the documentation was worse than useless).

Bruce was not presently prepared to resort to using the fluid - if access to the ship was even now possible - in case it mutated Clark’s body in a similar fashion.

So.

He was left with his own research, directly testing stimuli against the body to determine what might initiate healing factors in kryptonian biology. 

‘Master Bruce,’ Alfred spoke softly as he entered the lab, ‘I have the containment field you requested.’ He set the lead lined, Polyethylene box on the bench near to where Bruce was working.

‘Excellent, thank you.’ Bruce didn’t bother to look up from the files he was going through on the computer. ‘Would you place all the kryptonite objects inside it, Alfred?’

‘Already done, Sir.’ 

Bruce turned at that to see Alfred locking the box back up. Bruce hoped that the lead lining would protect Clark from the Kryptonite in the same way that it had protected Bruce from Clark’s enhanced vision. 

Bruce needed to start looking into possible ways to alter the chemical makeup of the kryptonite, see if an altered version of the rock might be the answer. But that was a lot of work, work that time spent on his current experimentation did not allow for.

It made logical sense to call in assistance.

He sent a text message to the number Diana had left with him and received a return message so quickly he felt certain she‘d been waiting for him.

Though it was another hour before Diana arrived at the lake-house, Bruce wasn’t prepared for her. Wasn’t sufficiently prepared to let anyone into his space, hadn’t ever been. All previous attempts to do the same had ended in disaster. But if anyone was equipped to handle the kind of destruction that shrouded Bruce like a blanket of smog, it was Diana Prince. 

‘Bruce.’

‘Diana.’

‘Thank you for having me.’ She inclined her head slightly, alluding to the discomfort that Bruce was feeling and appreciative that he was allowing her to be there anyway.

‘How’s Lois,’ he asked indiscriminately. 

Diana side eyed him and let out a small sigh. ‘She grieves,’ she said finally, ‘And she’s furious. Not just with you,’ she looked at him properly then, some residual guilt etched into the perfection of her face, ‘With me for letting him die, with the world... for never understanding him.’

‘He’s not dead, Diana.’

‘Let me see him,’ she said, in lieu of entering into any discussion on that subject. He gave himself enough time for one steady breath before nodding and led the way to the elevator for the labs. 

Diana sucked in a breath at the sight of Clark. Without his uniform he looked so human. Alfred had dressed the wound with a non-adhesive gauze pad and crepe bandaging. Whether or not the body was susceptible to domestic bacteria was debatable, but Bruce wanted to eliminate any chance of an infection that might negatively affect the regeneration process. They had put him in underwear for modesty’s sake and covered him to mid chest with a deep red sheet that looked enough like Superman’s Cape, Bruce could not forget who and what hinged on his success. 

Diana caught her breath at the sight of him. ‘He looks the same.'

‘The body hasn’t displayed any signs of decomposition or putrefaction.’ Bruce removed himself just enough from his emotions to appear detached. ‘His temperature hasn’t dropped below eighty eight degrees. His blood isn’t flowing but neither have his capillaries collapsed.’

Diana was close enough to touch him now, and she did so, slowly. Hesitatingly. One elegant hand reached out to press against the pulse point in Clark’s wrist. 

‘It’s almost like he’s asleep.’ Her eyes were closed. Bruce knew she wouldn’t find a pulse, but the wait for her to pull away remained suspenseful. ‘Is this what it was like for the general… before they mutated him? Is this how his body appeared in death?’

Bruce measured his words carefully, prepared to disappoint, as much as he didn’t _want_ to. ‘Yes.’ He watched as Diana deflated. ‘But they performed an autopsy. Cut into the body. Treated it like a corpse.’ He binked for a second longer than was necessary, ‘I won’t do that. Until Lex used the ship to do whatever he did, they had kept the body on ice. Who knows what would have happened if they’d assumed the body wasn’t fully dead.’

Diana let go of Clark’s wrist and took his hand in hers for a moment. Resting it back on the table before stepping away. ‘What do you need from me?’

‘I need you to help me with the kryptonite.’ He wasn’t surprised by the glare he got in response, ‘I need to modify it, try to alter its properties. See if I can reverse its effects.’

Diana’s glare lessened. ‘Okay,’ she crossed her arms, but remained near the table where Clark rested. ‘I have some contacts who can help me with that.’

‘It has to be kept quiet,’ Bruce said, brooking no arguments.

‘Trust me, Bruce, I can be discreet.’

‘Thank you, Diana.’ She nodded and moved past him, careful not to touch him. ‘Alfred has a sample ready for you.’

‘I’ll see him on the way out.’ 

Bruce nodded

‘And I’ll let Lois know that there’s no change.’

Bruce nodded again. That seemed wise, Lois didn’t need any further stress (Bruce wouldn’t admit to himself that it relieved his pressure too, that no one was expecting answers he couldn’t give). 

‘You want to continue to tell Martha nothing?’

Martha. Martha whom Bruce had met only twice. Once to save her life and the second to beg her complicense in deception while Bruce attempted to save Clark too. Neither scenario would have ever been necessary if not for Bruce’s single minded, violent misplaced vendetta. He had chosen not to give Martha the true reason to keep Clark’s whereabouts and condition a secret, instead spouting rhetoric about secret identities and separating the timeline of Clark’s and Superman’s disappearances.

‘For now. Yes. Please, Diana.’ It would be too cruel to tell her anything other than what he had already explained. Without any idea of how long this would take, how long they _had_ , it would only break her heart a second time if things went sideways. For all that he felt so sure he was right, he didn’t have the capacity to give a mother hope and then steal it back from her, should he fail

‘I’ll be bringing her here to see him eventually,’ Diana stated, (it was not a question). Bruce understood. He made a note to have Alfred visit again and make sure Martha and the farm were taken care of and wouldn’t be burdened - financially or otherwise, by this loss (Bruce couldn’t face her again, her grief was so raw and his part in it too real).

‘But you’ll continue to tell her we’re keeping him here to keep his secret. To keep his body safe. Nothing more. Not yet’

‘I will,’ she agreed, heavy with resignation.

Bruce let her leave, not knowing if Diana looked back over to him before stepping into the elevator, keeping his eyes on Clark instead. Diana would do the right thing, and Bruce could now focus on the remainder of his research. 

That meant more hours of observation, of pouring through the notes, of making his own, of drawing up plans. He dismissed any ideas of attempting to perform an ultrasound or MRI, it wouldn't be informative without the knowledge needed to both read and perform the tests, and Bruce was still reluctant to include anyone else into the knowledge of Clark’s origins, not just of who he was, but also his physiology and his vulnerabilities, to call in an expert (yet). A CT scanner would be possible to buy, but Bruce would need software, would need to understand how to use it, read it and interpret any of the data. It didn’t seem like the best use of time, at this point. 

For now he had X-rays. X-rays that showed Clark’s internal physiology to be indistinguishable from a human, at least visually. So Bruce would work with what he had.

He was starting with the basics.

Removing the kryptonite needle they had put together from the secure lock box, Bruce drew up 5mL of the 1mg/mL epinephrine solution from his kit. 

‘Okay Mister Kent. I’m going to administer this adrenaline intramuscularly to your upper thigh,’ Bruce spoke to the body as he readied the injection, removing air pockets and adjusting the volume. ‘I’m going to go as high as 30mL today,’ that would be an additional 10mL and then 15mL dose from this bottle before it was empty and he would think about a stronger concentration to administer later if unsuccessful, ‘after one hour intervals to track your vitals.’

Bruce punctured the skin of Clark’s left thigh and was sure to insert the needle deep into the tissue before releasing the contents. 

‘Are you expecting this to work, Sir,’ Alfred asked from the doorway to the lab, approaching Bruce cautiously with what was likely a cup of tea.

‘Not especially, no. But I need to rule it out,’ Bruce replied. It was Bruce’s understanding, from all of the information available, that no substances native to Earth would have an effect on Kryptonian biology. But all variables should be accounted for. ‘I was thinking…’ he looked to Alfred as he accepted the mug of steaming tea, ‘I might need to get some information from Lois.’

Alfred merely raised his eyebrows in question.

‘It would be helpful to have an understanding of his eating patterns. His energy levels throughout the day, the sort of things that none of Lex’s or my research, with only the lifeless bodies, would be able to determine.’ He avoided Alfred’s eyes as he spoke, taking a sip from his mug and then abandoning it on the bench to start collecting data.

‘Master Wayne,’ Alfred said, moving forward, ‘Bruce.’

Bruce turned to him then.

‘Could you come up to the house for a break. Please. At least to eat something substantial.’

‘The shakes are fine, Alfred, they have all nutritional components accounted for.’

‘You need a break from this Sir.’

Bruce looked to his friend and acknowledged the worry he found in the lines of Alfred’s face. It was a good face. Handsome in its own way. Ageing now in a graceful way, lines deepening around the mouth, stubble about the jaw that he never would have worn when Bruce was young. Hair grey but thick and lively. Something about it had always brought comfort to Bruce. It would be logical to allow it to comfort him now. Bruce would be no good to Clark if he couldn’t keep himself operating efficiently. 

He checked Clark’s vitals and noted the results (nothing. There was nothing). ‘I’ll come up. I have an hour between dose administrations, maybe we could have breakfast.’ He allowed some fondness into his tone, ‘Are there eggs?’

‘There are eggs, Master Bruce, however, being that it’s nearly eight oclock at night, let’s make it dinner.’ There was a smile in his eyes that Bruce could admit made his heart a little lighter.

‘Right, well, dinner it is Alfred.’

‘Very good Sir, I’ll see you shortly.’

Bruce washed up in the cave and made his way up to the lake house. Alfred had the fire going (it was raining… cold. Bruce wasn’t expecting that. Being in the cave was always disorienting). And Bruce collapsed into the lounge in front of that fire with a weariness he hadn’t been aware of feeling until now. 

‘I have an omelette ready for you Sir, do you want it here or at the table?’

‘Here is fine,’ he sat up to at least resemble a functioning human while he ate, ‘Thank you Alfred.’ Bruce hoped Alfred knew that the thanks were not just for the omelette. 

‘Back again, Kent,’ Bruce spoke softly, returning from his dinner break. ‘I’m going to take your vitals and then we’re going up to 10mL. Not to worry, we’re just getting started.’ He could hear a touch of Alfred’s comforting lilt in his voice, understandable, and knew that this, offering what comfort he could, was the least he could do for Clark while he lay there. 

The day passed and no concentrations of the adrenaline, nor other prepared solutions, proved successful at eliciting a response in Clark’s status. Being that the bloodstream wasn’t flowing, it was not a surprise, but notes were recorded. 

Bruce pushed his disappointment aside. There was no room for it here. 

### Clark

Kent, or so the voice called him when it spoke, felt it start to press on him now, the words, the contact. It felt warm, it felt… friendly. Like it meant to find him, reach him. But upwards was pain and something… nameless Kent was afraid of. He was safe here. The voice could reach him here. He could _feel_ it now. And that could be enough, couldn’t it? He would stay. He was safe, he would stay.


	4. Touch

### Bruce

Bruce was spending more time than usual in the lab, he was aware. Even had Alfred not given him _the face_ every time he popped in, Bruce would know his behaviour had become somewhat compromised. But leaving Clark… alone... Leaving him alone was getting harder. 

But so far none of the tests run had shown any indication of stimulus. No UV exposure, atmospheric manipulations, or chemical administrations, had sparked a reaction in the status of Clark’s wound, or his general condition. Bruce had, for no explainable reason, taken to spending large chunks of time just sitting with Clark while he poured through more and more research. Perhaps as if (he hated to admit) time alone would prove to be the deciding factor in Clark’s recovery. 

'No change,' he said softly, running a finger over Clark's pulsepoint. Again. He'd lost count of how many times that day. He wasn't even noting it down anymore (probably the most worrisome). A reassurance, more than anything, for Bruce to know that still, nothing had changed. 'No worse, no better,' he muttered. He was, perhaps, becoming a little unhinged.

Clark made no comment. And just that thought alone had Bruce's fingertips digging into his forehead. Yes _obviously_ Clark wouldn't be commenting, _thank you brain,_ he was well aware of his own ridiculousness. (His inner voice always sounded suspiciously like Alfred). 

He occupied himself checking in with Diana’s progress (slow) with calories (protein shake), with footage of the Gotham streets (constant vigilance) and with more overview of his next steps. All the while looking back to the table where Clark lay, running random questions by him, muttering small observations, conversing with, for all intents and purposes, a ghost.

The problem was that Clark looked so peaceful. With the bandage covering the wound and the lack of any decomposition, he still seemed remarkably alive. Asleep, almost. A little cold, a little pale maybe, but alive. The temperature in the cave was a balmy sixty five most of the year, and the heat had done nothing to increase or alter the morbidity of Clark’s body. More than anything, that reassured Bruce of his hypothesis. It also made it increasingly difficult not to imagine that Clark would eventually just _wake up._

Bruce left that particular thought thread there, and dismissed himself, to take a nap (and later, patrol).

But time away from the lab didn’t offer a reprieve. Meetings with Gordon, rooftop surveillance, routine takedowns of petty criminals. None of it seemed to overshadow the constant knowledge of what was waiting for him in the lab. And it wasn’t just the research that called to him, or even his guilt anymore. It was the uncertainty of what Clark, if anything, might be _aware of_ through all of it. Was he in there somewhere? Some part of him? Was he as terrified as Bruce imagined he would be, trapped and alone?

No good could come from Bruce obsessing over unobtainable data. And so further patrols, less sleep, less opportunity for idle thought was the best that Bruce could do. And a return to the research of how to bring Clark back, of course. As often and as efficiently as possible.

Electrical stimulation would be his next test. Back in the lab, he readied all the equipment he would need and had Alfred procure him a biofeedback headset with which to measure Clark’s brain waves. 

Bruce didn’t want to cause any undue stress to the brain, so he would apply the shock charges to the chest to target the heart muscle (though he had some plans to potentially apply the charge via a galvanic stimulator to the temples once other methods had been exhausted).

‘The headset is attached and is sending the feedback information directly to your computer Master Bruce,’ Alfred said, coming to stand with Bruce as he attached the pads. 

‘Alright. Clark, I’m going to be administering an electrical stimulus to your heart through simultaneous shocks to your right pectoral muscle and to your back, between the scapula, at two hundred volts.’ Bruce could see Alfred watching him, but did not attempt to engage, ‘this shouldn’t hurt, but I need to step back.’ Bruce let go of where he had made contact with Clark’s arm and stepped back to activate the charge. The electrode’s indicated the charge had been dealt, but the current seemed to move through Clark’s body without effect. No visual stimuli of the shock to the body could be detected.

‘Did anything come through the headset?’ Bruce looked over as Alfred checked the computer data.

‘There is a slight uptick in activity Sir,’ Alfred announced, scrolling through the EEG readings, ‘I’m not certain it correlates directly to the shock though.’ 

Bruce moved to look at the readings himself and could see that the timing was a little off. The ‘activity’ appeared to have occurred for a ten second period preceding the shock, rather than the shock itself. 

‘How much testing have we done on the validity of the instrumentation, Alfred?’

Alfred looked back at Bruce with the sort of reserved indignation the british had perfected. 

‘Fair enough,’ Bruce continued, sufficiently chastised, ‘We’ll have to run through more values and check back to make any usable correlations.’

‘Agreed.’

Alfred and Bruce both turned back to the table.

‘We're going to repeat that okay Clark?' Bruce adjusted the electrode minutely, allowing his finger to brush against Clark's skin for a fraction longer than necessary, offering false comfort (whether for himself, or Clark, he couldn't say), ‘Same voltage, here we go, administering in three, two, one-’ Bruce activated the charge and they watched as, again, no visible stimulus from the shock could be observed in the body. 

‘Alfred, increase duration of charge to five seconds.’

'Ready.'

'Okay, Clark, we're increasing the length of time the charge will be administered, so this current is going to last for five seconds. And... Activating shock in three, two, one.' 

They increased the duration of the shocks from one second to five seconds to ten seconds. With two, three and four shocks respectively, Bruce adjusting the electrodes between shocks when they had slipped. He didn’t know what he was expecting from this exactly, but they had data now, something quantifiable for him to sort through. To analyse. It was a starting point at least, for determining the source of the neural activity. 

Bruce moved to the computers and looked over the EEG data they had collected from the headset. As with the data from the first test, there was a small uptick in brain activity leading up to the charge itself. The next charge showed the same phenomenon. In fact a huge eighty percent of the data correlated in the same way.

It appeared the activity was caused by something taking place right before the charge. 

‘You’re talking to him Master Bruce,’ Alfred, wide eyed still at the data as it rolled across the screen. 

‘But the activity doesn’t last the length of my talking to him. It does last the length of…’

Christ. _Fuck_.

Could Clark actually be responding to Bruce’s _touch_?

‘Of your touching him to adjust the equipment,’ Alfred finished for him.

'Could that be right, Alfred?'

'If we know anything after all this Sir, it's that nothing's impossible.'

'Jesus.'

'Indeed. Master Bruce, I suggest we forget the electrical stimulation for now, focus on the readings we collect from touch alone.'

'Agreed.'

Somehow, in someway, it was _touching_ Clark that might hold the answers. Bruce pushed any hesitation towards that thought to the back of his mind, there was no time for it. They had to move forward. 

Decision made, they discarded the charges and reset the experiment to observe the EEG readings through various forms of physical stimulation. Essentially repeating the methodology of the previous test, but with a five second duration of skin to skin touch from both Bruces and Alfred’s hand, using their own neurological stimulation to touch as a baseline.

And for every administration, they had results. It wasn't a huge response, much smaller than the uptick either Bruce or Alfred demonstrated at the sensation of an open palm pressed to their left shoulder. But it was an observable, repeatable, neurological response to touch. 

He was alive.

Clark was Alive.

***

### Clark

Clark ( _Clark_ , the voice called him now, and the name carried a weight, sat with him like a _comfort_ ). Clark felt it, the warmth of their hands when they touched him. Far away, from someplace outside the darkness. It was like a gift, bestowed gently, no pain caused, no sharpness, no wrenching. Not touch like the last of what he remembered - from before the darkness.

Their touch felt like a softness. It came with care. He felt, as ever in this place, safe. There was no desire to leave it, to enter back into the screaming, hateful devastation he had escaped from. Here was peace. He wouldn't leave. He could stay, he had the freedom, here, to stay and be safe.


	5. Crossing a Line?

### Bruce

  
  


Unfortunately, the truth of it was, though they now had actual, physical, quantitative data to suggest Clark was not dead, they had yet to find the stimulus to _wake him up_. 

What kind of state was he in? Would he be in, even if they did wake him up? Would he still be Clark? Would he still be Superman?

Bruce allowed the unanswered questions to push him on, and to delay his forwarding what they had found so far onto Lois or Diana. (Stalling, he was stalling and he knew it).

'Clark. We can see that you're in there,' Bruce said, one palm on the left shoulder of Clark's body, 'I'm going to find a way to bring you back to us, Clark. Bring you back to Lois. To Martha,' he closed his eyes at the sound of that name. Responsible for so much of Bruce's pain but also, so fortuitously, for stopping his hand from murder (did it really, in the end? Or just delay the inevitable). 'I promise we will.'

Bruce should be more careful with the promises he was doling out. He was at a loss as to how they could manipulate this new information into finding a way to heal the damage. The neural activity was a good sign, it was excellent progress, but it hadn't had any effect on the body. 

He trusted no one with the knowledge of who and what he was keeping in his lab. Alfred, yes, and Diana, to an extent. But no doctors, no scientists. It would be Bruce, and only Bruce who found a way to bring him back (he wasn't really alone, he knew. Contrary to Alfred's opinion, Bruce _was_ aware of how dramatic he could be, and in this case he was truly sinking into it). But so far he was at a loss as to what to try next.

With his guilt piqued, he made some calls to check in on Martha. It seemed there was a financing issue on the property that he had the company take care of, buy the bank if they had to, to make sure that no one would bother her with anything petty while she was grieving. He had promised Clark he would take care of her, and at least this was a promise made that he could keep. And keep well. Alfred had been checking in on her from time to time as well, while Bruce hid away in his cave and let his money solve his problems. 

He left the biofeedback headset on Clark for long stretches of time now, while he used different forms of touch to collect data. But none of it had proved useful yet. 

'I just wish I knew how much of this is reaching you.'

Clark, as still as when he had first arrived- cold, pale, _beautiful_ \- offered no response. 

Bruce sat in his seat by the table and held Clark's hand. He had touched Clark, in the past few days, possibly more than he had ever touched any other person in his life. It was strangely calming, touching him, holding him, with the permission of an experiment to absolve meaning. Bruce was so used to metering his affection, so careful to keep people at a distance (which had worked so well for him in the past, just ask his sons… his _son_ ), being allowed this freedom to touch, express this strange affection (projection, probably, Bruce, a way to alleviate your guilt), was dangerously addictive. 

But it was for Clark. No price to pay, to right his wrong, would be too high for Bruce. 

'I wish I knew how to get to you, Clark.'

Days passed like that. Alfred dragging Bruce up to the glasshouse for real food, to sleep in a real bed and not just a cot in the cave, to converse with actual living beings. His efforts involved asking Bruce to attend board meetings, charity galas, and, among other, similar horrible events, an auction for some truly hideous art. Alfred understood the importance of maintaining Bruce Wayne's identity and worked diligently to impart that understanding just as fundamentally onto Bruce. He was approximately fifty percent successful. 

Bruce could be cajoled into attending the board meeting by dial in. He tore himself away from the lab, dressed himself up and sat through an equal parts insufferably boring and terrifyingly pretentious auction. He obstinately refused to waste time at a _gala_ of all things, not while Clark lay trapped in his own unmoving body. Waiting for Bruce to find a way to bring him back. 

'I feel I should count it a victory, Sir, that I managed to get you out of the house, without the Bat, at all.' Alfred wandered through the labs, checking on equipment, popping briefly by Clark's side to offer a greeting and a soft pat to his shoulder. 

'I'm needed here, Alfred.'

'I know you are,' Alfred replied, not unkindly, 'But you'll do yourself no favours, allowing everything you've built to crumble while you keep a vigil here.'

Bruce didn't want to argue - though it wasn't a vigil, it was tireless and constant research towards the answer to Clark’s being _Alive_ \- so he nodded and accepted Alfred's good intentions without snapping. 'I'll think on it, Alfred, give me another hour down here, then I'll come up for dinner.'

'Excellent,’ Alfred replied, dry as ever, ‘Any chance, while I have you in a giving mood, I can get you to give Ms Prince a call. Let her know of our progress?'

Bruce shook his head, once, decisively. 

'Understood,' Alfred sighed. He turned away, no doubt rolling his eyes at Bruce's belligerence. But he didn't push, and that was all Bruce asked of him. 

Once alone, Bruce leant his elbows onto Clark's gurney, picked up Clark’s left hand and held it with both of his, resting his forehead against Clark's still bruised and battered knuckles.

'I'm so sorry for all of this Clark, I don't think I told you that yet. But I am so sorry for what happened. What I did to you...'

He sat with Clark like that for a while, for no real reason other than avoiding Alfred and his (deserved) self righteousness. He spoke a little to Clark of all the ways Alfred had driven him crazy over the years (and probably wasn't hiding the affection in his voice convincingly) and imagined Clark holding out a hand, from the other side of a door, desperate to connect but unable to reach through. 

'I have to go, but I'll be back,' he stood, and as he did so, pressed a kiss to Clark's knuckles. And froze. 

That… was crossing a line. That was so far from an appropriate form of contact it was reprehensible. Bruce had no idea what could have possessed him to do that.

Alfred was right, Bruce _was_ spending too much time in the lab - thank god no one had been there to witness it.

He placed Clark's hand back by his side and hurried upstairs. Pushing that experience from his mind. Bruce was a master at decompartmentalising. He could just... pretend it had never happened.

He crept back down to the lab later that night and checked the most recent readings from the evening. He brought up the data from the neurotransmitter and had to sit down. A significantly larger than normal spike of activity sat in the middle of the readings. Something that had affected Clark more than any other stimuli used thus far. Something that hadn’t even been part of an experiment. An accident. A slip of Bruce’s hold on his emotions. No amount of Bruce refusing to acknowledge the existence of that kiss to Clark’s knuckles could mistake the fact that the massive spike in the readings correlated exactly to the moment Bruce’s lips had touched Clark’s skin. 

And yet Bruce was at a loss as to how to use this data to move forward.

He didn’t want to tell Alfred what he’d done. Or hear about the immorality of what he was pretending not to be planning to do. 

Which made it difficult for him to formulate any logistics… Unless...

  
  


‘Diana,’ he perhaps barked a little too forcefully into the phone upon her answer.

‘Bruce.’

‘Any progress?’ 

‘Hello to you too, Bruce.’

‘Sorry. Hello, Diana,’ he carefully removed any impatience from his voice, she certainly didn’t deserve to be the brunt of it, ‘Any progress?'

Diana huffed a laugh into the speaker, ‘A little.’

Which meant what, exactly? ‘Could you, perhaps, elaborate?’

‘It seems it is possible to modify the ionic structure with manipulation to the charge of the atoms.’ She explained carefully.

‘That sounds promising,’ Bruce mused. Changes to the structure would mean changes to its properties, which could enhance or decrease its effects on Clark. Or change them completely. They knew so little still.

‘It’s promising, but it’s early days. I wouldn’t want to make any claims about how stable it will be or whether we can make enough of it in a modified form to be of any use to you.’

‘Well keep me informed. Actually Diana, could I send Alfred to you? To be of help? Speed the process up a little?’ He kept the desperation out of his voice. Sending Alfred was less about helping Diana’s progress as it was about getting him out of the cave for a while. But _nobody_ needed to know that.

'I wouldn't say no to the assistance, but Bruce, won't you miss him?'

'I will, but I've got some data to carry on with here that I can do alone for the time being, without deficit. So it's a good time for me to lose him to you.'

'If he could bring some equipment with him, I'll give you a list.’

‘No problem, whatever you need, I’ll have it to you... Diana?’

‘Bruce?’

‘Thank you. I know this is not ideal. But we have to keep trying.’

‘It’s never too great an effort when we might be able to save him.’

‘Thank you,’ he said again. For what she was and wasn’t saying. For keeping her eyes on Lois. For allowing him all of this when it would have never been necessary if not for his ego.

‘Get Alfred to call me when he’s on his way, I’ll have him collected.’

And so it was that Bruce was left to further the experiments on Clark unchecked. For good or bad, Bruce was now free to push the extent to which his touch might wake Clark, uninhibited by rational or cautionary oversight. He carefully kept his preconception of his limit of that extent firmly locked where even he couldn’t touch it. 

***

### Clark

Clark had felt the touch of something different and it scared him. Scared him by just how _much_ he had felt it. Not only that, but how _good_ it had felt. Something strong, warm, _powerful_ had touched him and the response, in this place where everything was so muted and padded, scared him.

And yet… he longed to feel it again. The safety, the quiet, the blanketed warmth of the darkness was his security, but it lacked something, some primal thing that a part of Clark was craving. So Clark waited… to feel it again, the touch that was more than touch. 

He didn’t have to wait long.


	6. Escalation

###  Bruce

Alfred was soon on his way to Diana and the lab she had cobbled together (with help from some contacts at NASA of all places) with pallet loads of equipment for them to get to work. Bruce had noticed the rather unfamiliar excitement in his butler at the prospect of being in such close proximity to Diana for the next week, but felt it safer to keep the observation to himself. Alfred was out of the house and Bruce wasn’t about to invite any reason for him to want to be otherwise.

Which left Bruce finally alone with Clark. Headset on and ready to collect data. Bruce dressed in the under armour of his bat suit, easier to ready himself for any calls coming through, and set all of his equipment to alert him to anything necessary. He sat at his stool by the gurney and tried to come at this as clinically as possible. 

His kiss has elicited the greatest neurological response yet. So it stood to reason that it had registered with Clark in some way greater than Bruce’s hands alone. But further tests would be necessary to be sure. So… his next course of action was to first touch Clark, as they had been, with a hand to the upper arm to set a baseline for touch. Then kiss Clark, exactly as he had, on the knuckle, repeatedly, with a one minute lag time between data points. 

He could do this. He could do this for Clark. This wasn’t about Bruce, it had nothing to do with the rush of whatever the feeling was that flooded him at the idea of his lips on Clark. This was about bringing him back. 

So he started with a touch to Clark’s arm. He held that touch for five seconds. Then waited a minute. Then held the touch for ten seconds. Then waited a minute. That minute was full of a feeling Bruce couldn’t name (or chose not to), but he pushed it away and focused on his task. As always, Bruce had no time for hesitation. With practised surety, he lifted Clark’s hand and pressed his lips softly to the cold, pale, delicate knuckles (he forced himself not to think on how fragile they seemed in his bigger, rougher hands). He held his lips on Clark for five seconds and then pulled away, lay his hand back down. Waited a minute and repeated the process. For five seconds again he held the kiss and then lay Clark’s hand back down to wait the next minute and increase the kiss to hold for ten seconds. He repeated it twice more. 

Each time, Clark’s hands felt the same under Bruce’s lips, unmovable, unmoving. As he looked down at Clark, fighting the compulsion to reach out to him between data points, he was struck anew by the stupidity of how easily he had been manipulated into hating him. Fearing him. Up close like this, wrapped in the soft blanket, scratched and bruised and bandaged from the fight from which his body had been frozen in time, he seemed to Bruce so easily breakable. Each time he reached out to touch his lips to Clark’s knuckles, he imagined what it would have felt like had Clark been warm, responsive...  _ awake _ .

He remembered the Clark he had met so briefly. He had, at the time, been struck firstly by how out of place he seemed. Ugly jacket, too big, too… tweedy for the benefit they were at. His glasses, ridiculous, and totally failing at hiding how beautiful he was. It was his earnestness that had really struck Bruce though. How thoroughly unimpressed by Bruce Wayne Clark really was. God, it had never occurred to him that he was speaking to fucking  _ Superman  _ at the time. And now, looking at Clark, it was so obvious. Glasses as a disguise should never have worked? But it wasn’t just the glasses, it was the unobtrusiveness, the ordinariness. And it  _ had _ worked, had even fooled the Bat himself... 

Anyway. He was letting himself get sentimental and that was a dangerous hole to fall down. He separated himself from Clark long enough to drink a shake, eat a protein bar and one of the apples Alfred had left for him. When he came back he finally allowed himself to check the readings, and his chest tightened. His breath increased. 

He could see that each kiss correlated to the kind of increased readings Bruce had previously observed. Levels suddenly comparable to those that Bruce and Alfred’s own (very alive) neurological activity demonstrated at touch. 

Bruce was… Bruce’s  _ kiss _ was… Clark  _ could _ feel him. Enough that the response to a kiss was proportionate to a living person's response to touch.

But still, through it all, there was no sign that Clark might wake. And Bruce waited. He waited overnight, missed his patrol, forewent sleep, sat beside Clark to see if the increased brain activity would have any effect on his state of body. 

It did not.

Frustrated, after hours of watchful focus and zero rest, Bruce slumped in his seat, head in hands, and thought hard about his next course of action.

‘You can feel me Clark, I can see that you can. It’s quantifiable, damn it. Why won’t you wake up?’

Clark, of course, remained silent on the matter.

Bruce managed the readings, the analysis, in documents on a server no one other than himself, not even Alfred, was not privy to. He had to keep notes, because whatever this was, it was still for science. If Bruce abandoned the analysis, what was he even doing? But no amount of data was going to show Bruce what wasn’t there. 

‘Maybe it needs to be more. Maybe I have to keep pushing?’ he asked aloud, having taken to holding Clark’s hand as he spoke to him now, in case the increased stimulation might help Clark hear him. If Clark could just  _ hear _ him, surely he would pull himself back from this half death? 

There had to be a point at which the stimulation of brain activity would be enough for the body to begin to heal itself. If his brain was responding, his neural pathways were operating, his cells, on some level,  _ had  _ to be operating. That  _ had _ to correlate to his cells beginning to repair the tissue. 

So, it stood to reason that Bruce’s next course of action was to increase his level of touch. If a kiss to the knuckles was more stimulating than a touch of a palm to Clark’s shoulder, then was it the level of intimacy, or intensity, increasing the response? The only way to find out was to keep going. 

He began with a kiss to Clark’s knuckle, repeated that twice, five seconds and ten seconds respectively. Then he took a deep breath, steeled himself, leant over the table to Clark, rested his arms on either side of Clark’s bandaged chest, and pressed his lips to Clark’s lips. Cold, like the rest of his body, softer than the split skin of his knuckles, slightly open to Bruce’s mouth, though totally unresponsive. He held himself there, hovering over Clark, simulating this forced intimacy, for the full five seconds his analysis required. Jesus,  _ fuck _ , it felt like forever. It felt like Bruce was taking the worst kind of liberty. Maybe this was just a terrible mistake?

He pulled himself away and worked to control his breathing. That… maybe… he shouldn’t have done that. This wasn’t a fairy tale. Clark wasn’t fucking  _ Snow White _ . He was giving into something now, that no level of analysis could forgive. He rushed to the terminal to check the readings and, for what it was worth, they had doubled in size from the baseline. Doubled. But Bruce couldn’t do that again. There was no way he could put either of them in that position again. 

He could, instead, he reasoned, he  _ could _ increase the intensity. He could hold Clark, hold him with greater contact than he had previously held him. Would that work? Stronger, more prolonged contact? He set everything back, saving the readings he had already taken, and climbed onto the table next to Clark. Unmoving, unresponsive, breathless, lifeless, Clark. 

(Brave, naive, selfless,  _ stupid _ Clark)

He lay down by his side, almost draped alongside him, careful not to put too much weight or pressure on the body, too irrational to treat this like the experiment it was and with a tenderness that Bruce so pridefully lacked in his day to day life, put his arm around Clark and just held him. 

He lay his head on Clark’s shoulder and it felt so wrong (right, it felt right and he hated it) ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing and I’m so sorry, Clark.’ Bruce felt his breath hitch, he tried to hold it in but he couldn’t. He lay there, Clark in his arms and he cried. Cried for Clark and for the mess that he’d made. Cried for the situation he now found himself in. Cried for the way he had let himself feel about a man that might never wake up. Because of Bruce. Because of what Bruce had done to him.

What a clusterfuck.

He wasn’t following any procedure now. He was holding Clark, crying on him, clutching at him, no timing, no structure. The readings would need to be ditched. The whole evening was a write-off, probably. And what did it matter? None of the neural activity was correlating to healing him, waking him. For all of the apparent brain activity, nothing had changed. And Bruce just wasn’t prepared to take this further. 

What he needed to do was stand up. Pull himself together. Get over himself and finally call Lois. It was time to get as much information about Clark as possible. And maybe, god willing, he could find  _ something _ to break this spell. 

###  Clark

Clark had been suddenly pulled into feeling. Barreled into sensations wholly alien to this place as he’d known it. Something soft and warm pressed to him, his hands? Did he have hands, in this place? Phantom hands, if there were such a thing? And then to his face, his mouth? Like… like a kiss? Where was this place? Where was he that he could feel a kiss? And who would be kissing him? Nobody had kissed him in so long… he felt arms, someone heavy, strong, wrapping him up. Suddenly safer than he'd ever felt in this place. Maybe safer than he’d ever felt… anywhere...


	7. Missing Pieces

### Bruce

Lois had been scoping out Wayne Enterprises for weeks. Bruce had allowed Alfred to field the calls from staff relating to her relentlessness. And used the distance between Metropolis and Gotham to ignore her completely. But that ignorance had cost him. Had cost Clark. He no longer had the luxury.

It didn't take long to get her on the phone and organise to meet. Somewhere neutral. He didn't want her seeing Clark, looking as he did, unchanged and not alive in any way that Lois might expect to have seen progress and not be devastated by. They agreed to meet at Bruce’s office in Metropolis, it being so much easier for Lois to get to when Bruce could fly in. He took the helicopter (he had left Clark, wrapped in his red cape-like covering and alone in the cave with every possible sensor Bruce had, on and ready to alert him of movement) and landed on the roof. 

Metropolis, too clean and bright and _modern_ to feel comfortable for Bruce, usually held a certain charm that he could appreciate. 

He wasn't appreciating it today. 

'Bruce,' Lois called, voice cold and level, from the open door of his office. Bruce had dismissed Carla, his assistant, for the afternoon. Discretion was paramount. 

'Lois, thanks for meeting me.' Bruce stood as she entered.

'Cut the crap and tell me what the fuck is going on,' she said, tone unchanged, sitting in the chair opposite his, accross the desk, 'Please.' 

'Things are… Clark is…' Bruce fought to centre himself by reaching out for his fountain pen. 'He's unchanged.'

Lois deflated in her seat. Her eyes sharpened and she set them to Bruce with a wrath he absolutely deserved. 

'What have you been doing? This whole time, with no word, and _nothing's changed_?'

Bruce worked harder than he should have had to, not to squirm in his seat. 'We have, that is… preliminary experiments show promise.'

'Promise of what?' 

Bruce took a breath, small and even, showed no outward sign of the fear he felt (he knew, he’d worked his whole life at not showing it - why was it so hard now, why was this the thing that hurt?), giving Lois a hope she might have cause to hate him for. ‘Promise that Clark is alive. That he can be brought back.’

Lois snapped at the statement. Bruce saw the change in her as soon as the word alive left his throat. Her eyes grew wide, her breathing escalated. She swallowed, carefully and reeled herself into check. ‘Based on what grounds?’

Was Bruce prepared to give this information away? When it was still so raw? ‘Neurological feedback responses.’ 

Well… Seemed like he couldn’t help himself. 

‘Like… you can see that his Brain is, what… active?’ Lois moved forward in her chair, vibrating over his desk, leaning all that energy into Bruce’s faux calm. 

‘In a way, yes. His brain is responding to stimulus around him, the activity is spiking against relatable actions. It’s… promising.’

‘It’s promising? Bruce, you said that already. This sounds - I don't know - ground breaking! What more is there, what aren’t you telling me.’

Bruce looked Lois in the eye, watched the judgement take shape and grow. Lois blamed him already for everything that had happened, and she should, she had watched him ready to stab Superman (Clark, it was still just Clark) through the heart with that damn spear. But somehow, her knowing how much he was failing this, it was damaging his stoicity to the point of negligence. 

‘The activity, as much as we have collated, it’s not… it doesn’t affect him in any other physical way. His body is not responding to the increase in brain activity in any way that we can see. Or measure.’

Lois didn’t slump as Bruce had expected her to. All that energy remained focussed on Bruce. ‘But it’s there.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you believe you can bring him back?’

‘Yes.’ 

She sat back then. Crossed her arms. Levelled her stare. ‘What do you need from me?’

Bruce internalised his sigh of relief. Everything would be easier if Lois was willing to cooperate. ‘I need you to tell me about him.’

‘Tell you what about him?’

‘Everything. Anything. His habits, his favourite food, if you’ve ever noticed him get hurt or sick, or just tired - what helped? Did he have a comfort food, how did coffee affect him? Alcohol? Anything you can think of that might be relevant to his health…’

‘God, I don't know how helpful I’ll be…’

‘You lived with him, Lois,’

‘Barely,’ she said, pursing her lips.

‘I thought you-’

‘You thought what?’ she asked incredulously, ‘we were fucking?’

Bruce was properly shocked to find out that they might _not_ be. 

‘Clark is a friend, he’s like family. We went through a lot together, but it wasn't like that, Bruce.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Don't be sorry for that, be sorry you got him killed, be sorry you hated him without knowing him. Who gives a shit that we didn't have some stupid romance. '

Bruce just nodded, honestly dumbfounded. What more could he say? (Except that all that time he had felt so guilty, that he was dreaming of something that belonged to someone else, it turns out that it never had).

'If you want real information you need Martha. She knew him - _knows_ him - better than anyone.'

'I can't talk to Martha about this, Lois, you have to see that.'

'Right, right, you’re right ' she paused for a moment to close her eyes and fidget with her hands. 'He liked coffee, hot and milky and full of sugar, or syrup if he could get it, vanilla, caramel, hazelnut. He wasn't fussy.'

Bruce began to jot notes as Lois talked, anything could be useful (and he was inclined not to interrupt). 

'I don't know if it affected him, but he needed it, in the morning, and drank it all day in the office…' she paused again and tilted her head, chasing a thought. 'I never saw him drink alcohol, I don't think. Or sick or hurt,' she looked at Bruce again, 'except for on the ship, and with you…'

Bruce nodded again, accepting his guilt, and that it was Clark's own planet, the atmosphere, the mineral from its surface, the kryptonite, that stole his power. The superpowers had to be something to do with Earth's atmosphere, maybe some balance of chemicals… but why wouldn't that balance be helping now? What had changed? Bruce had confiscated all the kryptonite, locked it away. Maybe the air in the labs was too clean, too fabricated? He’d run atmospheric tests though - and they’d yielded nothing.

‘He would get tired sometimes though.’ Lois was watching him make notes, her anger had morphed into a shrewd sort of curiosity, ‘Especially after long days at the office.’

Long days inside… ‘And did it seem like being outside helped rejuvenate him? Fresh air?’

‘No,’ she shook her head, ‘No. He would sleep it off. And then in the morning-’ she laughed at something, the image of that memory ‘-he would be up and at the windows as soon as the sun came up. Just, like, basking in it.’

‘In the sun.’

‘Yeah, like a big cat, just stand in it for ages.’

The sun. ‘The sun,' he repeated. Stunned. The _sun_.

Lois looked at him like he was crazy, and then suddenly she could see it too. ‘The sun!’

‘Shit, _Fuck_ !’ Bruce swore, flying out of his seat and grabbing at the phone, ‘we’ve had him in the fucking lab! In the _dark_ !’ He’d tested UV on the wound, but he’d never tested _solar_ energy. He’d never taken Clark into anything like real sunlight.

( _Of_ -fucking- _course_ he should have tested all the light wavelengths, it could have been _any_ combination of segments from the electromagnetic spectrum. To only test UV. How many more ways could he fail Clark?) 

‘Bruce,’ Lois’ hands shook as she stood with him, ‘It can’t be that easy, Bruce.’ 

Bruce ignored her to bark instructions for the helicopter to pick him up on the roof immediately. ‘He’s been buried underground, under concrete! Fucking, _layers_ of it! For _weeks_ ,’ Bruce grabbed everything he needed, left everything else as it was and started his race up to the roof. Lois followed, undeterred by word or scowl. And Bruce didn't have time to argue. As soon as the helicopter landed he was swinging himself into it, Lois deftly swinging herself in beside him.

The pilot took them straight to the lake house without instruction and they disembarked, Lois gracefully, Bruce like a rabid animal, and ran for the entrance to the cave, not bothering to wait for the helicopter to be far enough out of sight that they could make their way down unseen. Lois was surely cataloguing every detail, ready to expose what she could if needs arose. 

It didn't matter.

Nothing mattered but getting to Clark.

The elevator took longer than Bruce had ever remembered it taking as they stood side by side, anxiety radiating off their shoulders like waves of condensed steam. As the doors opened Bruce shouldered his way through them. Lois was behind him, he heard the inhale of breath as she saw the body for the first time. So still, pale and cold, (at least fresh, clean) bandaging holding it together. But Bruce ignored it all to grab at Clark, swoop him into his arms and head back up to the lake house. Cradling him, whispering to him, 'Any second now, Clark, we'll have you in the sun, any second now.' 

Lois clenched her hands into fists at her sides as they wasted yet more time in the elevator, huffing at Bruce's platitudes to the body he carried. Angry at the sight of him, likely just as terrified and elated at the potential outcome of the next few minutes as Bruce himself.

The doors opened and Bruce threw himself forward, set Clark down into a patch of as much sun as Gotham was able to offer them. And for all of their climactic momentum, while no one present drew breath, nothing changed. 

Nothing.

Bruce needed his equipment. He needed some way to measure a response because to their naked eyes it appeared that the sun was making no difference. 

And that couldn't be right. It made sense, it all fit, that the sun was the catalyst. The cave wasn't completely cut off from the outside atmosphere, as much as it was controlled by automated systems for temperature and light and airflow, it wasn't air tight, the air was still the earth's air. So any atmospheric effect would have been demonstrable over time. But it hadn't been. 

But the sun. The sun was totally absent from the cave. No light that wasn't artificial existed in the labs. 

Bruce had no way to determine how long the sun would take to stimulate regeneration (no, there was no room in Bruce’s head to believe the sun wasn’t the answer). Without instrumentation they might not be able to see any change… it would begin at a cellular level and Bruce’s vision was good, but it was still human. He would never be able to _see_ that. But going to get instruments meant leaving Clark, and he couldn’t do that either. 

Where was Alfred when he needed him ? 

(Yes, he knew where - and he resolutely wasn’t thinking about why he had sent him away).

Lois was pacing a ten foot track back and forth, only as far from Clark as she could find the room for her wandering, while Bruce knelt beside him trying to will Clark’s resurrection into being. 

‘It’s not working,’ she said, mid step, clenching and unclenching her fists with nervous tension, ‘Bruce, it’s not working.’

‘Let’s not propose any conclusions until we can measure his vitals,’ Bruce said, distractedly staring into the vein at Clark’s temple - as if intense enough watching could stimulate the blood into action - ‘I need my equipment.’

‘So get it,’ Lois huffed.

Bruce forced calm and allowed none of his unease to surface. He needed to stop panicking. He’d faced down gangs of armed criminals with perfect composure, now was not the time to lose his well trained cool. He used his breathing to steady himself. Gave himself space to _think_. This was just another variable, the sun, they were testing it’s efficacy. What would be his next step if they were in the lab?

Firstly they needed to move Clark - they could move him to the bedroom in the lake house. The windows, though double glazed, would allow the sun to hit Clark squarely if they positioned him in the bed - with the added benefit of being a comfortable place for him to wake up (he would, _would_ wake up). If the glazing seemed to affect the process of stimulation then they could come up with a better plan later. It _was_ a process and the procedure right now assumed that - from the information Lois had already given him - the windows would allow for the conduction of stimulation. 

‘We need to move him inside,’ Bruce externalised to a waiting Lois, ‘and then I’ll get what we need from the lab.’

Lois nodded as she aborted an attempt to help Bruce lift him and followed him through the open plan house and into the bedroom at the back, with the bathroom set between it and the lounge to partition it from immediate view. He lowered Clark onto the bed (a blessing then that Bruce hadn’t lately been sleeping in it) and arranged him so that as much of his surface area as possible was exposed to the sunlight. Thank every false God in existence that Bruce had designed the lakehouse for the bedroom to face the force of the afternoon sun. 

‘Can you stay with him Lois, while I go get what I need from the lab?’

Lois answered him with a powerful look of derision, as if she would be leaving Clark’s side for anything right now, and he believed it. She sat by Clark on the bed and took one of his limp hands in her own as Bruce kept the both of them in his periphery. A particularly bright wave of sunlight took that moment to land across Clark's near naked body, the expanse of that pale, perfect skin like carved marble, and Bruce had to tear himself from the sight. He had work to do.

He left them and made as best a time as possible getting down to the equipment, bringing back, piecemeal, all of what he would need to check Clark's vitals, neurological output, temperature. Basically everything he could realistically carry and re-erect in the lakehouse that would help give him an idea of what Clark's body was actually doing.

On his second trip up, this time with everything in a trolley, Lois was calling for him before he'd managed to even escape the elevator. He abandoned the trolley and ran to her side, expecting, well - he just didn’t know. 

Lois was standing back from the bed with a wary expression. She grabbed for Bruce as he came within range and tore her gaze from Clark to look up into Bruce's eyes. With fear.

Bruce looked back to Clark and immediately noticed what had Lois afraid. 

The bandage, that less than an hour ago had been fresh and clean, was slowly but noticeably staining a light brown colour. A pattern was forming around the placement of the gauze, some kind of bodily fluid seeping through the pad and into the bandage.

Bodily fluid seeping meant blood flow. Blood flow meant a heartbeat. A heartbeat meant life. 

‘Lois,’ Bruce said, moving past her towards Clark on the bed. Clark who hadn’t moved, who remained unchanged apart from the slow, slow spread of fluid across his white crepe bandaged chest. ‘Lois, it’s okay.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘Let me get under this so I can see.’ Bruce took a moment to carefully sit next to Clark on the bed, jostling him as little as possible. He lifted Clark’s wrist into his hands and felt for a pulse. There was, _oh god_ , faintly, and so slow as to _barely_ register, a perceptible beat along the artery. Perhaps four or five beats per minute. 

He placed Clark’s hand back at his side and gently, as gently as possible (being that he had to sit Clark up slightly) began removing the bandaging from around the gauze against the open wound in his chest. As he had suspected, the removed pad was soaked with a light brown fluid. And once uncovered, Lois and Bruce could both see that the wound itself was moist, was lightly bleeding, was _closing_ . Not to the point where they could _see_ it closing, but to a point where they could see that it no longer opened _through_ the chest. 

Clark was healing.

Bruce’s head suddenly felt heavy. His senses seemed to temporarily dampen. All he could see or feel was Clark's restitution. He wasn’t even sure he himself was breathing, focused so intently on watching and waiting for Clark to start.

He needed his equipment, Clark might need, _god,_ so many things. Fluids? Oxygen? More bandages? He needed to leave him, just for a bit, leave him with Lois. It would be okay.

He was Alive. And he was _healing._

‘Lois, his heart is beating-’

‘What?’

‘-it’s slow, it’s erratic, but I can feel it. And the wound is closing-’

‘ _Jesus, fuck._ ’

‘But I need to finish bringing in the equipment so I can measure it.’

Lois nodded fervently, eyes fixed to Clark, taking Bruce’s place by his side as he got up to collect what he could.

‘Oh my god, _Clark_ ,’ she said. She looked to be in shock. Bruce could relate.

It took another hour to set up what he needed and begin monitoring Clark’s heart rate, his oxygen levels and his brain activity. Bruce needed to reset all of the equipment’s alarm parameters, as Clark had not reached any semblance of a healthy human’s vital signs. His oxygen level was low (still not perceptibly breathing, but it was present in his blood), his heartbeat was still below ten beats per minute. His brain activity was lower than it had been during Bruce’s catastrophic intimacy experiment. But his temperature had increased and his wound was still slowly but steadily healing. 

Lois had poured herself a glassful of something white from the wine fridge in his kitchen. And then another when the first had taken less than a minute to consume. Then she had sat against the glass opposite the foot of the bed, head back, and breath normalising, as they waited. Bruce had returned to Clark’s side, sitting by him in the bed and careful not to impede the function of any of the equipment. It was sometime in the morning of the next day, hours and hours had passed with neither Lois or Bruce moving (no one had been monitoring the equipment in the cave and Bruce couldn’t bring himself to care), as the sunlight began filtering in through the glass (having finally risen over the other side of the house) that Bruce heard, _felt_ , Clark take his first breath. 

In under a second, Bruce was bent over him, one hand at the pulse in his throat, the other at his cheek (his heart rate was a steady twenty-five beats per minute). When he looked down at Clark's chest again it was almost whole, a red angry scar mapping the damage that had so recently existed there.

'Clark? Can you hear us?'

'Clark?' Lois asked softly, having rushed to their side at Bruce’s movement.

There was no response, but his breathing continued. His skin was warmer to the touch, though still below a healthy temperature. 

Lois had moved to the other side of the bed and was clutching at his hand.

‘He’s still unconscious,’ she said, eyes shining, though a persistent cloud of worry remained. 

‘I don’t think he’s unconscious,’ Bruce said, reading the EEG, ‘I think he’s asleep.’

‘Should we wake him?’

‘He might need to remain asleep,’ Bruce said, watching the rise and fall of Clark’s chest in fascination, ‘We have no idea what state he’ll be in when he wakes, how ready his body is to be moving around.’ There were bags still, under his eyes and the pallor of his skin, when carefully inspected, didn’t have the glow that Bruce wanted, that he remembered from the Clark of before.

He would have to call Alfred. Diana. 

Martha.

‘Lois,’ Bruce pulled her aside, away from a sleeping Clark to steal her attention, ‘I need your help.’

She looked away from Clark reluctantly and at Bruce without feeling. ‘What do you need.’

‘Martha, I need you to call Martha.’

‘Oh god, Martha.’ Lois fumbled to get her phone from her pocket and make the call. ‘Fuck, what do I say?’ She moved further away from Bruce, around to pace along the built in wardrobe that ran along the outside of the bathroom wall separating the bed from the rest of the house. He couldn’t help but listen in. 

‘Martha it’s Lois… yes I’m fine, I’m fine. I have to, Martha, I have news.’

Bruce could hear the echo of a voice through the speaker of the phone, but not enough that he could understand any of what was being said.

‘It’s Clark’, you know that Bruce was keeping him safe. Well, he… no it’s okay, he’s still safe. He’s… alive. Martha, Clark’s alive.’

There was a palpable silence through the phone, Bruce’s body was tightly coiled in anticipation as he stood at the foot of the bed, ever watchful of Clark in his periphery, and stared futilely through the wall at the conversation he couldn’t be part of. 

‘Martha...?’

A quiet voice answered Lois at an imperceptible tone.

‘Yes,’ Lois replied, ‘He’s alive, he’s… asleep, but he’s breathing… he hasn’t said anything yet, he hasn’t woken up yet we dont… we don’t know, Martha I’m sorry.... Let me find out, hold on.’ Lois’ head poked around the partition to find Bruce. ‘What now Bruce? Can we move him? Do we take him back to the farm?’

‘No,’ Bruce said without thought, ‘We can’t move him yet.’

Lois looked at him dubiously but didn’t argue. She lifted the phone back to her ear and softened her voice, ‘We’re not going to move him yet Martha, so I’ll get Bruce to arrange to bring you here as soon as possible… okay… yes, I’ll call you right back. Start packing.’

She looked at Bruce with her eyebrows raised and waited.

‘Yes, I’ll have the jet pick her up. You should go.’

‘I’m not leaving!’

‘Martha will need to see someone she trusts, and I’d rather she didn’t have to fly alone.’

‘No, right, you’re right,’ Lois agreed, nodding her head, ‘I’ll take the jet down to her and bring her back. What are you going to do?’

‘I’ll organise accommodation, get Alfred and Diana back. Keep an eye on his vitals.’

She nodded and waited while he organised a car for her to the airport, organised a flight for his jet to Kansas and a ride from the airport there to the farm and back for Lois and Martha. Organised somewhere for everyone to sleep that wasn’t just a spot on the floor of his ridiculous lakehouse.

Once she was gone, he had nothing to do but wait. Hours until anyone would be at the lakehouse. Hours to wonder why he had let the manor sit as a burnt out husk when it meant now there was no room for anyone in his house (in his life). No room for Clark but Bruce’s bed. Hours for him to wonder why he had never tried to take Clark outside, never exposed him to the world at large, that should have so obviously been the catalyst for Clark’s recovery. To wonder how much the delay in the healing process had cost Clark now. How much more damage had Bruce done. 

Jesus, he’d touched him. Kissed him. All he needed was the sun and Bruce had kept him in a cave and violated him.

Oh god. 

How much of that had Clark processed. How much would he remember?

There was nothing for it now but to wait. He dragged an armchair to the bedside and sat, tucking the now sleeping Clark under the covers. He would just have to wait for whatever came next.

***

### Clark

It was different, suddenly, this place. It was loud, it smelled, it _hurt_ . Colours and light danced behind his eyes, bright, too bright, even while he was sure they weren’t open. His chest burned, his heart _a_ _ched_. And his head… was heavy… sore… tired. So tired.

He didn’t want to stay here, he wanted to go back to the safety of that nothingness, but he couldn’t find a way out. He didn’t want to open his eyes, let all the sound and the smell and the _light_ in. So he let himself drift through it. Aware that he would have to make a choice soon. But afraid. 

He wasn’t safe anymore.


	8. Waking Up

### Bruce

Alfred and Diana arrived together with haste. Diana informed him they had yet to put together enough of the altered kryptonite to bring with them, and Bruce was glad for it. He didn’t want such an unstable element anywhere near Clark. A Clark who, at the moment of their arrival, was breathing, but sleeping still. 

‘Martha and Lois are on their way here,’ Bruce said to them both as they stepped into the bedroom to marvel at the sleeping Kryptonian with the sort of wonder reserved for miracles. It certainly applied here. 

‘Where are you intending to house everyone, Master Bruce?’

‘I’ve organised adjoining suites at the Gotham Mayfair,’ Bruce watched Alfred raise a questioning eyebrow, ‘I may or may not have had to purchase the entire hotel.’

‘Well then,’ said Alfred, looking more amused than the situation called for, ‘perhaps I should get Miss Prince set up there as well?’ 

‘You should, thank you,’

‘Bruce,’ Diana said gently, ‘Tell us what’s actually happening.’

‘It was the sun,’ Bruce replied, quietly, ‘Something particular to the solar energy from our sun must be the cause of his enhanced powers. Enough time in the sunlight has facilitated an almost complete resurrection.’

‘Almost complete?’ she asked.

‘Every hour brings Clark closer to full health. But he’s yet to wake up from what is, as far as I can tell, a normal sleep.’

‘He _will_ wake though?’

‘I don’t know for sure, Diana, but I believe he will, yes.’

Both Alfred and Diana took a moment to offer greetings to Clark as he slept, touched a hand, an arm, a shoulder, as they spoke, not even thinking of the touch, just offering it in comfort, probably sure in their intentions and the welcome they would receive for them. Bruce, for his part, was careful, even as he sat by Clark, ever watchful of his every breath, not to allow a single point of contact. 

‘He looks well,’ Diana said softly as she passed by Bruce in his vigil to follow Alfred from the lakehouse to the car, ‘You’ve done well by him, Bruce.’

Bruce shook his head. He knew, as she did not, _could not_ , the lie in her words. 

‘Whatever it is you are punishing yourself now for, Bruce, let it go. It won’t help him.’

‘Diana, it was the _sun_ . This whole time, if only I had _thought_. It seems so stupid not to have realised.’ 

‘Bruce,’

‘All this time we wasted. What if it damaged him, Diana, what if-’

‘Bruce,’ Diana lay a careful hand on his shoulder, ‘it is only because of you that Clark is here, and alive, and not trapped in a coffin, or a freezer somewhere.’

Bruce tried to look away, but his gaze was drawn back to the salvation Diana offered him. ‘None of this would have been necessary if not for me.’

Alfred looked up from the machines monitoring Clark to give Bruce a gently reproachful squint.

Diana removed her hand from it’s hold on him but patted him there twice. ‘We don’t know that,’ she offered, without intensity. It would do none of them any good to cycle through these old arguments. They all kept their voices low, hesitant to either wake Clark prematurely or add any stress to his surely already heavily stressed system. 

No feeding tubes or saline infusions had been administered, mostly due to the complete lack of knowledge in how those things might affect Clark and his alien biology, but also somewhat because it appeared so far as if he simply didn’t require them. Bruce wondered yet again, how much of what he hadn't or hadn't done for Clark would contribute to long term negative effects.

It was of course as soon as Alfred and Diana had taken their leave and well before Lois and Martha were due to arrive, that Clark began to softly stir. Bruce moved forward in his seat, set a hand out to place it by Clark’s hand, but not touching. Every intention of keeping just enough distance.

Only he hadn't anticipated that Clark's hand might reach out blindly and clutch at Bruce, the movement quicker that he could see. And though the grip was strong, held fast, it didn’t hurt, didn’t contract with any superhuman strength. The feel of that hand in Bruce’s was so soft, so familiar and yet totally alien in its warmth and its movement, the life it housed.

Clark continued to stir, brushing his head jerkily against the pillow and murmuring nonsensically, suddenly pulling Bruce in with force, until Bruce was sprawled across the bed, half covering Clark as he lay under the bedsheets, trying to lift himself up and away from all points of contact, but Clark would not allow it. The best that Bruce could do was get purchase on his elbow and heave his chest away from Clark’s chest, though it brought their mouths so close together that for a moment they breathed each other's air.

‘Wha…?’ Clark voiced, breathy and low. 

Bruce watched, frozen, as Clark’s eyes opened, widened, and focused on the lack of distance between them.

‘Uhh-’ he finally managed to mumble, ‘What… what’s ‘is?’

Clark was understandably confused, perhaps somewhat delirious. 

‘Clark, you’re in a safe place,’ Bruce said, as calm a register as his voice could find, ‘it’s Bruce, Bruce Wayne, you’re here at my lakehouse.’ God. How that was supposed to be in any way reassuring, Bruce was at a loss. Clark would surely want nothing to do with him…

But at the same time, Clark was talking, his eyes were open, he was _awake_. There was a war inside Bruce now and elation was winning over hesitation. 

‘Huh?’ Clark seemed unable to find the words he was looking for, he was squinting at Bruce now, like the light in the room was too bright, like Bruce was too close, though Clark held him there in a grip that couldn’t be broken, certainly not by Bruce. 

‘Clark, you’re safe here. You’re okay,’ Bruce continued to placate, ‘do you remember anything?’ Bruce wasn’t sure if he was asking about the fight, about his death, or about the time he'd spent in his odd stasis in the lab. Bruce couldn't even be sure of Clark’s cognition right now, 'Clark, can you understand me?'

Clark looked up at Bruce, his eyes almost crossed from the lack of distance. Something set in his eyes though, at Bruce's questions, and he watched recognition take hold. 'Yes.' It was hesitant, but articulate.

'Do you know me?' 

'Bruce?'

Bruce's body was unsure whether to relax or tense up at the sound of his name on Clark's lips. 

'What do you remember?'

Clark, if possible, seemed to lean closer to Bruce and shifted his focus from Bruce's eyes to his lips and back again. 'I don't… I don't know.' His voice was raspy with disuse. 'Am I… where am I?'

'You're in my lakehouse, Clark. Martha and Lois are on their way.' At the mention of their names, Clark slumped back onto his pillow in relief. Bruce used the lapse in tension to remove the headset from Clark with his free hand. Most of the rest of the equipment had been dislodged by Clark’s jerky movements. 

'Why… why am I here?'

Bruce didn't have an immediate answer for that, because he was unsure exactly how much to tell Clark upfront, how to weigh the obligation of being forthcoming with the risk of overwhelming him. Should he wait for Martha and Lois? Should he call Diana back? Would Clark even remember Diana from that night? Would talking about the trauma open some emotional wounds Bruce wasn't equipped to deal with? 

While Bruce fought to make a decision, Clark watched his meticulously concealed expressions run their gambit and no doubt came to his own conclusions.

'Was I, did we fight? I remember… you were angry.'

Bruce couldn’t hold back the flinch at those words. Not from Clark, who would be able to catch every microexpression as it crossed Bruce's face. 

'But I… helped you. And someone… and that thing,' Bruce watched Clark frown as he tried to grasp at the memories, 'Zod?’

'You did,' Bruce said, searching and finding his calm in the facts of Clark's actions, 'you fought the monster that was born from Zod. You were injured in the fight.'

'But everyone's okay?' Clark asked, eyes wide with sudden worry, ‘We stopped it.’

'Because of you. Yes.' Bruce pulled away, Clark finally allowing him the purchase to put distance between them as his head fell back to the pillow. ‘Reckless as it was, to throw yourself in harm's way.’

Clark looked back at him with curiosity. He didn't seem upset at the reprimand, or fond - as Alfred would be. Just... curious. ‘Why am I here?’

‘I didn’t feel comfortable letting you into anyone else’s care, I couldn’t trust that they wouldn’t take advantage of you.’

‘Was I really out of it?’ Clark asked, attempting to put weight on his arms to lift himself up and finding it harder than expected, frowning with confusion, ‘What happened to me?’

‘You killed the creature, ran it through with the kryptonite tipped spear,’ Bruce said, and Clark nodded along, piecing it together, looking for all the world, as if he had just woken from a long nap. His cheeks were developing a rouge, his eyes were brightening, the fingers on his left hand sneaking their way into a patch of sun on the bedspread, fanning out as if to soak up as much as could reach every inch of his flawless skin. ‘But you… are you sure you want to hear this now?’ Bruce asked, unnerved by the complete lack of hesitation or fear in Clark as he listened, captive.

‘Yes,’ he said, decisive. And then smiled (Bruce dropped a heartbeat or two at the sight of it), ‘I’m here aren't I? How bad could it be.’

It was supremely unfair, that Clark could look so effortlessly composed as Bruce fought for every scrap of composure he could trick his appearance into seeming. He swallowed down his worry, ‘You died, Clark.’

Clark blinked. Looked down at himself carefully. Looked back at Bruce and cocked his head. ‘I died?’ the eyebrow raised, the slight uptick of the corner of his mouth, the lack of tension, all suggested Clark was not taking him seriously.

‘Maybe we should wait for your mother.’ Bruce was feeling wrong footed, losing command of the discussion. But mention of his mother seemed to spark a sobering of Clark's temperament. 

‘If it’s bad, Bruce, I would rather you didn't.’

‘Clark, Martha is - _was_ \- aware of what happened. I know this is hard to believe but you were, in enough ways to officially count, dead.’

Clark’s breathing picked up, ‘Mom? Ma thought I was dead?’ he attempted to push himself up again, and succeeded at least in sitting up on his elbows, listing into Bruce a little as he struggled to fight gravity. 

Bruce nodded, and against better judgement, reached a hand out to steady Clark, help him to sit up and then hold that hand to his forearm. ‘She’s okay, Clark, she's on her way here now.’

‘I was… dead, for how long?’

Bruce didn’t want to say. As much as the days and nights had washed into each other and away from Bruce’s comprehension, he was acutely aware of how much time had passed. 

‘How long, Bruce?’ Clark seemed to grow both larger and smaller as he worried at not knowing, ‘A day? A week?’ His voice pitched higher, ‘A year?’

‘Twenty seven days.’

He slumped back at the response and closed his eyes. 

Bruce let go of his arm and sat back with a mixture of relief and sadness. It wasn’t an irredeemable amount of time. But how many of those days had been wasted by Bruce not recognising the simple truth of Clark’s power.

‘And I was dead that whole time?’ Clark asked, taking all of it too easily. Suspiciously so. Bruce was sure, were the positions reversed, he would be full of quiet rage.

Bruce aborted a nod to answer it more honestly. ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. But also no.’ Clark’s expression begged for clarification, ‘I don’t actually believe you were dead at all. I think your biology is just different enough from a human-’ and at that word Clark flinched, small but present ‘- that you appeared dead. But your body seemed to be stuck in a sort of stasis.’

‘And you kept me here? Until what? I just… came back to life?’

Bruce winced but felt compelled to answer. ‘I had you down in the lab. I was trying to find a way to… bring you back.’

Clark watched him with expectation. Bruce was comically embarrassed to answer.

‘Turns out all you needed was the sun.’ 

Clark exhaled an amused huff of air, but nodded at the admission. ‘It’s always made me stronger, better. The sun.’

Before they could get much further Clark cocked his head as if listening for something. 

‘What is it?’

‘A car.’

It could be Martha and Lois finally, or it might be Diana and Alfred. Either way, it spurred Bruce to move from the somewhat compromising position next to Clark on the bed. He stood quickly and patted at the myriad of wrinkles, still in the suit pants and shirt he had worn to meet Lois, absolutely wrecked from the last twenty four hours of stressful worry. 

‘I should… change,’ Bruce said, caught between wanting to look presentable for Martha and not wanting to leave Clark’s side. 

Clark moved as if to try and get up and Bruce hurried to steady him.

‘God, no, I’ll just... grab... something, don't you move.’ Bruce rushed to say, quickly adding, ‘Please,’ aware he was rambling. 

‘Well I’ll just… be here.’ Clark said, again with a huffed laugh, closing his eyes and resting himself back against the wall. 

Bruce grabbed what he could from the wardrobe, changing quickly into soft black pants and a charcoal sweater. He slipped shoes on, because at the least, the shoes lent him a sense of readiness that everything about the last two days (the last month to be honest) had been missing. He also grabbed a grey cotton t-shirt from his work-out clothes and helped Clark into it, covering up the red scar from the tear in his chest. Manoeuvring Clark’s arms and head through the shirt to get it on, without touching him any more than absolutely necessary. It was torture.

The car pulled up and Clark, hearing her voice well before Bruce, exhaled ‘Mom,’ and struggled to pull the shirt down and sit up straight.

‘Try and take it easy, Clark.’

The look he received in reply was _all_ Superman.

Bruce didn’t belong to any part of this reunion. But he couldn’t (wouldn’t) get away from Martha as she grabbed at his arms. He’d barely seen her since that night with Lex, when he’d told her he was Clark’s friend and she had believed him. Except to then tell her Clark had died and that she needed to keep it a secret. Bruce deserved none of Martha’s kindness, but he neither could he deprive her the comfort of offering it.

He led her into the bedroom, Lois following close behind, looking ready to catch Martha at any sign of collapse. Clark’s mother was made of sterner stuff, though, and at first sight of him in Bruce’s darkly comfortable bed, halfway up to a sitting position and somewhere between sheepish and elated, she flew at him, wrapping him up in her arms and rocking him back and forth.

Bruce used the distraction to slide past a narrow eyed Lois and outside onto the concrete deck. He intended to wait away from the Kent’s and their affection, their humble love, their tenderness, for Alfred and Diana to get back and take the reins on the social niceties.

He shouldn’t get to enjoy this moment, even adjacently. Never had he been so aware of just what his actions, his darkness, his hunger for revenge, could have cost the truly _good_ people currently crying in his lakehouse. But neither could he help the joy seeping out from his chest and finding its way to his fingertips. He had been so busy looking for all of Superman’s alieness, all of his weeks and months of research on the man of steel and he had completely missed the gentle, humble humanity of Clark there.

Bruce sat on the concrete steps, lifted his face to the sun, and let it fill him up, sure, in that moment, he could feel it’s power too. 

### Clark

Clark had listened to all of Bruce’s calm and quiet explanations. He had watched the uncertainty and the fear, the _guilt,_ pass beneath the levelled features that Bruce displayed as just another mask to the world.

His head was fuzzy, his limbs felt heavy. His chest ached. But considering that the last thing he properly remembered was fighting through a red and green haze to kill the mutated, ruined thing that Zod had been made into, remembered the feeling of losing, of tension, of fear; just the fact that he was alive and whole was an accomplishment. 

He was trying to piece together what had happened. How he had woken to find himself in _Bruce Wayne's_ bed, of all places. But it seemed right, after they had fought beside each other and won, that Bruce had tried to keep him safe from the kind of maniacal experimentation that had created a monster of the only other Kryptonian body on the planet. And though Clark wasn’t sure how to rectify this Bruce to the Bruce Wayne he had met at Lex’s benefit (angry and arrogant), the Batman he had admonished at the docks (angry and petulant) or the Batman he had allowed himself to be goaded into fighting (angry and violent), he still felt that strange magnetic attraction that he had felt to all iterations of Bruce. It was probably just the Bruce Wayne effect - didn’t everyone feel that way about him? Even while they despaired of it? Clark was sure that was true. He had heard Lois express as much a time or two, and she was rarely attracted to anyone. 

And there was something else. Something inside him, a memory or a feeling, of comfort, of… warmth. Clark had watched Bruce reel it in, once it had slipped just a little into his expression, and it seemed so familiar to Clark. Clark who could barely remember speaking more than ten civil words to Bruce in their (pre-death) interactions but felt the fleeting suggestion of _home_ being beside him. 

It was a little confusing. 

Seeing as Clark had been mostly dead for a month, he figured there would probably be a lot more where that came from. 

All of it was pushed aside anyway, at the sound of his mom’s voice, and the need to be sure she was okay. That she wasn’t worried. That she hadn’t been too broken by what had happened and Clark’s needing to be kept here. 

She didn’t call his name, or cry, though she gripped Bruce’s shoulders at the door (and Bruce allowed it, looking a strange mixture of terrified and relieved) and he led her to Clark’s side, who watched them coming, using his enhanced vision to look through the wood and tiles and the space of the bathroom, following them around as they emerged where she threw herself into Clark’s arms. Arms that he hoped would always carry strength enough to wrap around her. 

‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, ma,’ he confessed. She did cry then, as he held her and she held him.

‘It’s okay, baby, it’s okay. You did what you had to do, nothing to be sorry for.’

Lois watched them with watery eyes but didn’t yet venture closer. Clark had never seen her cry, even with everything they had been through together, and he doubted he was about to see it now. 

And through all of the hubbub, Bruce had slipped away. Clark could see him outside, sitting on the steps that led down to the shore, knees drawn, head tilted to the sun, light hitting all the sharp angles of his face and softening them. And quietly, absurdly, he felt safer knowing he was there.


	9. Recovery

### Clark

Clark’s ma sat with him for hours, gently rocking him and carding her hands through his hair. He let her, because she needed it, to feel him alive again with her own hands and because it felt so nice to allow himself to just be held and touched and comforted without reproach. 

Lois had spent, what for her, was likely an obligatory amount of time just watching him breathing before begging off the icky emotional stuff. Claiming it to be in order to get Clark’s life sorted and ready for him to move back to. He and his mom let her go with understanding. Lois showed emotion through the ferocity of her protection and constructive criticism. To see her even here, eyes shining and chest tight, spoke volumes to the seriousness of what they had all just lived through.

‘Mrs Kent, Master Kent,’ a voice surprised him from the doorway, clipped British accent and warm effusement, ‘It’s a pleasure to see you reunited.’

‘Alfred,’ his ma said softly, fondly, and Clark - recognising the voice from the other side of Bruce’s comm device at Lex’s benefit (and comfortingly familiar, though he couldn’t place why) was struck by their closeness. How much had Bruce and this man, Alfred, reached out to his mother during Clark’s - what had Bruce called it? Stasis? - How much more did he have to thank them for? ‘Thank you, you kept him safe for me.’

‘As promised, Mrs Kent.’

‘Martha, please, Alfred,’ she said with a quiet chuckle, ‘I feel like I’ve said this before.’

‘Only once or twice,’ he replied, smile warm. ‘I’ll be organising food from somewhere in town, did either of you have anything particular in mind for dinner?’

Clark looked at his mother with a smirk and she looked back at him with a raised eyebrow. It was a ‘behave yourself’ if ever he saw one. And he would have anyway, but a part of him wanted to wallow in how ridiculous the situation was.

‘We don’t want to be any more bother,’ his mother said.

‘Let us look after you, Mrs Kent, Master Wayne seeks to make amends for the manor being unfit for company, and consequently, your being stuck in a hotel for the evening.’

‘She likes anything Italian,’ Clark piped up, knowing she likely wouldn’t ask for it herself. 

‘I shall note that down, thank you Master Kent, and for you? Anything particular?’

‘Anything and everything is fine for me, I think,’ Clark searched his appetite, wondering if he was feeling normal, could eat again without getting sick after all this time, but he seemed fine. ‘I feel hungry… I think? Usually I can just eat anything, but maybe I should take it easy.’ Clark looked to his mother again and watched her grow concerned. He looked then to Alfred, who watched him with a touch of wariness. ‘What does Bruce say I should eat?’ he asked, because Bruce would know. So far he'd had the answers for everything. 

‘I’ll ask him, Master Kent, never fear. We’ll find you something.’

Dinner, it turned out, was anything and everything that Bruce could get his hands on, and had probably cost them what Clark normally spent on food for a month. Alfred and Bruce returned from town with Pad Thai, Pizza, garlic and pepper pork, barbecued chicken, steak, potatoes, dumplings, bread and pho, the last of which, was solely offered to Clark as a starting point for what Bruce referred to as ‘Digestive Analysis.’

Bruce approached to perch on the bed where Clark was still sitting, propped up against the wall, with the soup in a bowl on a serving tray. He had the spoon in his hand and was frozen with it, soup on board, held aloft between them. Seemingly intent to actually feed Clark, but at the same time horrified by the position he was in. Clark watched his cheeks fill with an attractive blush and coughed to clear his throat.

He wasn’t sure how he’d ended up here, in Bruce Wayne’s bed, with the man himself set to spoon feed him soup… and Clark was similarly frozen in place at the absurdity of it. His mom sat watching them, having taken over Bruce’s watchful spot in the armchair, and the look on her face was enough to set a blush in Clark’s cheeks as well. 

‘I can probably do this myself,’ he finally managed to say, looking from the spoon to Bruce and quickly away at the intimacy of how they were placed. 

‘Well, yes okay,’ Bruce said, though he seemed reluctant to relinquish the spoon to Clark, ‘But I’ll stay here and hold the bowl.’ And his expression as he said it, determined frown, flushed cheeks, scrunched nose, was so soft and adorable, Clark was struck by how much he _liked_ it. 

The soup offered an easy distraction and Clark took to it gratefully, relieved at the steadiness in his arms and the strength that was slowly returning to him. As he took his first mouthful, he closed his eyes to the sensation of it. The buttery, savoury richness of the broth was offset by its freshness and its lightness. He wasn’t sure if the whole coming-back-from-the-dead thing was affecting him or if the soup was just _that good_ , but it felt like he had never tasted anything so wonderful.

He tried to be careful not to look at Bruce directly, lest he make it uncomfortable, their being sat so close together, but he lost himself a little to the sensation of the warm soup filling him and wanted to share the feeling. And when Bruce smiled back at him, with a short breath of relief and a quick quirk of his mouth, he felt a fondness settle in him, warming him as much as the soup had.

‘It’s good,’ he said, a little unnecessarily, and Bruce rolled his eyes in reply, moving the bowl closer so Clark could reach for more. 

‘Eat it slowly,’ he said, a hint of scolding that Clark felt was undeserved.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he replied and turned his attention back to the soup, making an effort to be painfully slow and ignoring the chuckling from his Ma in the background. 

Before he could get to the next mouthful, Clark heard a car approaching the lakehouse - something fast. He looked through the walls to see a woman park just outside the garage, behind Bruce’s cars without blocking them in. She exited the car with a disarming grace, and he recognised the contained power before he recognised the face. It was the woman from the night he’d died. The warrior.

‘What is it?’ Bruce asked, watching Clark, who’d stopped with the spoon half way to his mouth as he listened. 

‘Someone’s here. The woman from the other night… Diana?’

‘Diana, yes. You remember her?’ Bruce got up from his spot on the bed as he asked, motioning to Alfred, who sat eating steak and potatoes with Lois in front of the fire. 

‘I remember her being at the docks, and I remember being surprised by her power, is she… is she like me?’

‘Diana is… her own brand of super. I’ll let her explain it to you.’

‘But she’s good?’

‘She’s lovely, Clark,’ His ma said, setting her food down and standing up from the chair, ‘I’m going to go and say hello,’

He looked back to the door as it opened, watching his mother and Alfred greet Diana there, his Ma enveloping her in a hug. And everything Clark needed to know about her was answered by the way Diana closed her eyes into it, leaned down and let his mother pat her hair, all the while nodding to the pleasantries cooed at her and cooing her own in return.

He followed her movement through the house and around to the bedroom. She smiled, informed by his ma that Clark was well and sitting up in bed, but didn’t speak until she rounded the corner and met him face to face.

‘Hello Clark,’ she said, voice like liquid silk, ‘It’s so nice to see you awake.’

The accent, the richness in her voice was familiar to him as well. Clark wondered how much of what he felt and responded to was a subconscious reaction to their interactions while he was ‘sleeping’. 

‘Hi,’ he shifted on the bed, straightening his t-shirt like it might help him appear less of an invalid, and more a fully functioning adult, ‘Thank you, it’s nice to be awake.’

Diana stretched out a hand to place on his shoulder and squeeze gently, ‘Today is a great day.’

‘I feel like I need to thank you, for things, I don’t really remember…’

‘No thanks are necessary, Clark. Just to see you doing better, is all I need,’ and it seemed so genuine, Clark allowed himself to be mollified. 

Bruce watched them with a blank look, he and Diana having shared a flat glance but otherwise not spoken since she’d arrived.

‘Let me get you some food Diana,’ Alfred said, touching her lightly on the elbow.

‘Lead the way,’ she replied, following him back to the kitchen, looking back to smile at Clark, ‘I’ll let you finish your soup in peace.’

Clark nodded and turned back to Bruce as he moved to follow her, ‘Just give me one minute,’ he asked and Clark nodded. Deliberately not watching them or listening to the clipped exchange about where Diana had been and why Bruce seemed unhappy about it. He dove into the remainder of the soup, finding the noodles just as palatable as the broth and silently decided his digestion was fine. Though when Bruce finally returned he persuaded Clark to wait out the rest of the night before declaring it non-problematic. Bruce cleared the dishes and stole a few bites in the kitchen before hovering by the entrance to the bedroom in case Clark needed anything. 

Bruce spent the remainder of the evening working between avoiding Clark and attempting to jump to his every potential need. Clark was exhausted just watching him. Alfred seemed both bothered and charmed by it, his ma routinely catching Clark’s eye and laughing at the absurdity of having Bruce Wayne at his beck and call. Lois was on her fourth glass of wine, had spoken less than four words to Bruce the entire time she had been in the house and after a brief hug for Clark, stepped back to liaise with the office and get a jump on their story for Clark’s return.

She ended the call on what sounded to Clark like a delighted Perry (which couldn't be right, surly was his only setting) and bustled his mother unceremoniously from her spot at the foot of the bed to get her into the car so Clark could get his beauty sleep.

‘Alright, well I’ll be back in the morning,’ his ma said, ‘You just rest.’ She kissed him on the head and held him tight.

‘I will, ma, you too,’ he replied, chuckling at his face squished into her shoulder, ‘I’ll be right here.’

She stepped back and put her coat on as Alfred held it for her, ‘And be good for Bruce!’ she said with a grin and a wink. Clark wanted to crawl under the covers. She’d always been far too good at reading his mind.

Diana and Lois said their goodbyes as well, both promising they would talk to him tomorrow after he’d rested.

And suddenly they were gone and it was just Clark and Bruce.

‘I’m going to be right around the corner if you need anything,’ Bruce said, gesturing to a spot by the dying fire and preparing to back out, ‘anything at all, it’s fine, just call out.’

‘There is something I’d like, Bruce,’ Clark said, now that the others had left and he felt he could take a risk. ‘And don’t say no before you hear me out.’

‘What is it?’ Bruce asked, his wariness apparent.

‘Could we go for a walk?’ Clark blurted, ‘I’ve been stuck in here all day, I feel like I need to get up and walk around,’ Clark was sure that the activity would do him good, but he was winging how well he would be able to actually get up and around without someone to hold him up.

Bruce, though, was shaking his head, ‘I’m not sure it’s safe, I’m not sure…’

'You could come with me, you'd be able to keep an eye on me at all times.' He blushed at the implications of that and realised he didn't hate the idea of Bruce watching over him.

Bruce looked conflicted, from the little of what Clark could read from his expression, between wanting Clark to be comfortable and wanting him to be safe. Clark wasn’t used to needing assistance, or a minder, but so far it had turned out to be a more pleasant experience than he’d expected.

'Okay, but for the record, I'm against this.'

'Absolutely, Bruce, when it turns out to all go perfectly I will definitely rub that in your face,' Clark quipped, taking the sweatpants Bruce offered. 

'Gee thanks, Clark.'

'You're welcome, Bruce.' 

Clark could feel himself grinning. Could see at least a ghost of that grin on Bruce's own lips. It was strange, being thrown together like this. It didn't exacerbate their animosity as Clark might have feared, it diminished it. 

They left the house tentatively. Though Clark felt anxious to be outside, something in him was nervous at the reality of it. At leaving the safety of the lake house. Which, well, all the more reason for him to get it over with. 

And it didn't take long, with the feel of the air, crisp against his skin, for the nerves to dissipate and let relief take over. It was what he had been missing, his feet on the ground, the smell and the sound of the world up close, not muted by the walls and glass of the house. 

'Thanks for this,' said Clark, tipping his head back to breathe deeply. 'I just really needed the fresh air, I think.'

'I can understand that,' Bruce said, tipping his own head back slightly. 

They sat for a few minutes like that, letting the conversation go in favour of just breathing. It was surprisingly easy to sit by Bruce. And soon Clark was relaxed enough to let out a giant, jaw cracking yawn. 

‘Okay, I’m calling it,’ Bruce said, standing up.

‘I don’t know how I can be so tired, I’ve been in bed all day,’ Clark grumbled, not wanting to leave but appreciating that he probably should. 

‘You’re body is still healing, Clark, it's working overtime. Let’s give it a break, come on.’ Bruce let Clark lean on him as they turned back to the house and up the stairs.

‘It is beautiful out here.’

‘It’s… a lot of space for just me and Alfred,’ Bruce said, looking out at the grounds. His voice was measured but there was something so vulnerable in the statement. Clark felt like that was more than Bruce Wayne would normally ever admit to. ‘Come on, inside.’

Clark was left alone to use the bathroom and clean his teeth with a new toothbrush. He crawled back into Bruce’s bed, feeling guilty that Bruce would be banished to the thin daybed once he finished reading whatever it was he was reading by the fire. But Clark’s eyes had grown heavy and he could feel sleep calling. 

It didn’t take long though, once he’d closed his eyes, for fear to take hold.

Phantom voices called out, angry. Clutched at him. Pushed him. Fought him. A deep pain flared in his chest, a pain that he had grown accustomed to over the course of the day but flashed anew at the memory of the wound it had been caused by. The desperate effort of pushing himself further onto the stake to drive the glowing blade home. The sight of all the blood and the smoke and the destruction. He opened his eyes in a panic and the sight of the room, the low but glowing light worked to force the other images out, chase away the memories. He slowed his breathing, let the action of doing so calm him. And then he waited with that calmness for a few minutes before closing his eyes again.

It was all there waiting for him.

‘Bruce!’ he called out, terrified that it was stuck to him. But again, opening his eyes was enough to get rid of it. And as Bruce ran into the room, just the knowledge of him there was enough to bring Clark’s breathing back in line. 

‘Clark, what is it?’ Bruce said, holding his hand out to prepare for a threat.

‘No, nothing, sorry I just… felt a pain.’

‘A pain, what kind of pain?’ Bruce asked, taking quick, graceful steps to Clark and sitting beside him.

‘In my chest,’ Clark described pressing a hand to the gently throbbing scar, ‘it’s gone now.’

Bruce gently butted Clark’s hand away and lifted his shirt. He breathed a ragged sigh of relief at the sight of Clark’s chest, whole, the scar prominent but healing. ‘Could just be healing pains, or residual pain from the scarring internally.’

‘It felt... like a stabbing pain,’ Clark admitted quietly.

Bruce caught his eyes and held them. ‘Could be phantom pains,’ Bruce said, watching Clark, ‘Sense memory.’

‘I was remembering…’ Clark started, pausing at the flat stare on Bruce, ‘Im sorry.’

‘Jesus Clark,’ Bruce said, sitting back and rubbing a hand down his face, ‘Don’t be sorry, _I’m_ sorry.’

‘It’s okay. I’m okay.’

Bruce was silent for the length of a deep breath, and then moved to leave.

'Could you stay with me?' Clark asked, self consciousness creeping in.

Bruce watched him. Complete lack of expression the only evidence that he was formulating a response. Clark had noticed during their day together, Bruce was only so expressionless when he was working to hide something. 

'Please, I just... if it's too quiet I can hear it, I can feel it.' Clark shivered at the sensation. 'It goes away when you’re here' It was hard to explain, except to say that he made Clark feel safe. There was a warmth that radiated from Bruce. Counter to the cold ruthlessness Clark remembered of Batman, or the reckless narcissism of Bruce Wayne; Bruce, just Bruce, had the sort of warmth that swept over you slowly, calmly, and eased you into security. 

Clark felt like he could use that, right now. 

He abandoned any sense of dignity, well past that now. 'I could hear you, you know,' he said, allowing the fear to show on his face. 'I don't really remember anything, but I have a sense of your being there. You and Alfred.' From everything he learned today, he knew that must be true. 

'Clark, we… you have to know that we,' there was a slight clench of his jaw, before he schooled his face back to it's blank mask, 'It didn't take long to recognise that your brain was still, in some small way, active.' Which explained all the half remembered feelings, the familiarity.

Clark nodded without interrupting.

'And neither Alfred nor I wanted to leave you too much alone, should it have turned out you were really awake and just didn't have a way of communicating with us.'

Clark almost reached out to Bruce, aware the stiffness in his body language was becoming more than just an act, now. He was anxious. He used his words instead. 'It worked, Bruce.'

Something in him loosened, Clark could see it. 

'It worked?'

'I don't remember exactly, I couldn't tell you anything that you actually said,' and there, Bruce made a face, fleeting, but obvious, that had Clark wondering what they might have been saying, to make him so glad Clark didn’t remember. 'But I do remember the feeling of hearing your voices. I could feel you near me, it made me feel... safe.'

Bruce, rather than say anything, just took a step back and slumped into the armchair by Clark's bedside.

Clark thought back, searched for it, tried to grab at the memories.

'It was like, knowing I had someone there, someone to protect me so I didn't _have_ to be awake. Didn't have to face anything.' Clark breathed, steadying the emotional flood of just the memory of how it had felt. The sudden intensity of it hit him a bit out of left field. But it felt right, to make Bruce understand how much it had meant to him. How much it meant to him now.

'I wanted. I so wanted you to be alive, Clark.'

'And I am. I'm okay. I'm right here.' Clark tried to reach out but Bruce stayed back, hesitant to touch. Which was okay. Clark could keep his hands to himself, especially if he thought the consolation prize might be Bruce's company. 'I just don't want to be by myself. Would you stay, Bruce, please?'

'Okay,' Bruce said, leaning back into the chair and getting comfortable, 'I'll stay.'

Clark closed his eyes, and the sound of Bruce’s heartbeat, the familiar, rhythmic hum of Bruce's breathing was enough to keep the memories away. 

Clark was asleep in minutes.

### Bruce

Bruce watched him drift into sleep, watched him toss slightly, knowing he shouldn't, didn't deserve to be so close. Clark was, he knew it was maudlin, but Bruce wanted to say, so _precious_ like this. 

Bruce knew, at his core, that he should stay away from Clark. He was, however buried, aware that the forced intimacy of his experiments with Clark had been about something more than just finding a way to bring him back, more than a desperation to find the answers. And he was aware, more consciously, that the longer he spent in any substantial proximity to Clark, the harder it would be to pull himself away from it when the time came. And it _would_ come. 

But he was also, seemingly, incapable of moving any further away from Clark than catching distance, should the circumstances call for it. Profoundly aware of the potential for fragility in Clark, Bruce was stuck in a self imposed purgatory, wanting to protect Clark from anything that might do him harm, knowing full well that he himself probably made the top of that list.

And while he sat, watching, waiting for a solution to find him, it became harder and harder to want to look away. All he wanted, really, was to reach out and touch Clark's once cold hands and revel in their warmth. He wanted to hold a hand over the slow and steady heart he knew to be beating life into Clark's chest. He wanted, more than anything, to crawl up into the bed and wrap himself around the peacefully sleeping form of a man he cared far too much for, having formed the attachment to what was essentially just an _idea_ of who Clark was, no understanding of the real man left trapped in his own strange purgatory.

  
While he was here, while Clark needed to be kept under careful observation, Bruce would allow himself to watch over him. But that was _all_ he would allow. And, when Clark was gone, he would let go.


	10. Nightmares

###  Clark

Clark dreamed. 

He dreamed of pain, sharp pain, angry and intense, blossoming out from his chest and stretching into his limbs. He dreamed of a violent presence trying to pull him down into a place that terrified him, for a reason he couldn't fathom or identify. 

There was something waiting for him there, and it wasn't the quiet warmth of the darkness that felt like a memory, it was more finite. An end. 

What he wanted was to find that safe space from his memories. He reached out to it, reached out to try and find the calm deep voice that wrapped him in comfort, he reached out to find that sensation of belonging he’d found in the unlikely place between life and death. 

As he reached, as he desperately clutched at emptiness with his cold fingers, he heard it, the voice, and closed a fist around it.

'Clark.'

He'd found it! Relief flooded him.

'Clark, you're safe, I'm here, I'm here and you're alive.'

He was safe, the voice said. He was alive.

He believed it. 

'It's a dream, Clark, a bad dream.' The voice soothed and a new warmth swept up from his closed hand, through to his chest. 'Wake up Clark, I'm here.'

Bruce, that was Bruce. Clark was waking and reality was setting in. He'd been dreaming, obviously, but it felt so familiar, the space he'd occupied. Empty, but recognisable. He forced his heavy eyes open and found Bruce practically on top of him, leaning over the bed and clasping Clark's hand in his own with the sort of stoic support that Clark was dangerously beginning to expect from him.

'Hey, there you are,' Bruce said quietly, relief evident in a sigh and smile. He made a small move to extricate himself from Clark's hold on him and Clark panicked.

'Don't go,' Clark breathed, using his strength to keep Bruce still, pull him closer. Which he shouldn't do, should he? He swallowed and fought to wake his brain up enough to take proper stock of the situation. His body still felt so sluggish and heavy, it was hard to get his bearings. 'I mean... sorry,' he let Bruce go, reluctantly, following his warmth as Bruce moved back into his seat by the bed. 'Sorry, I'm not really awake yet.'

'It's fine, Clark,' Bruce smiled, small but genuine, 'You've been through a lot. I think you might have to expect these sorts of dreams for a little while.'

'How did you know I was dreaming?'

'You cried out, in pain, it seemed like. The thrashing and anxiety was consistent with what I would expect from someone post trauma.' Bruce seemed to think better of reaching out to Clark, fisting his hands into the material of his soft pants instead. 'You've been through quite a trauma Clark.'

'I dreamed like this sometimes...' Clark felt the admission want to spill out of him, 'After I killed Zod the first time.'

Bruce tried to hide another fleeting expression, hard to tell if fear or guilt, or both. But he couldn't hide them from Clark.

'Do you get bad dreams, Bruce?'

He looked at Clark and nodded, resigned. 'They're the only dreams I have.'

Clark felt the misery radiating off Bruce, he didn't know if he was allowing Clark to see this, purposefully letting him in, or if it was too large for him to hold onto, just in that moment. The grey at his temples was sparse, but it stood out to Clark, suddenly. The lines around his mouth and eyes, deeper than they should be. But his face was all the more handsome for it. A softness against the strong jawline, sharp nose, high cheekbones. Untamed dark stubble growing with the sort of careless charm that was never captured by the tabloids. It gave him life in a way that his constant facade as Bruce Wayne wouldn't allow. He looked so... human. Clark wanted to trace his fingers along the signs of that stress, melt it away.

'Why don't you want me to touch you, Bruce?' Clark said softly, afraid of the response, but needing to ask.

Bruce looked surprised by the question, as if he hadn't expected Clark to realise he was doing it. Or maybe Bruce himself hadn't realised.

'You pull away, like you think I might hurt you.' Clark said, 'I wouldn't hurt you Bruce.'

'I would hurt you though,' Bruce confessed, like the words burned as they left him, 'I tried. Too many times already.'

'You made a mistake,'

'You're right, it was a mistake,' Bruce said, warming up to his anger slowly, 'I tried to kill you, Clark, I  _ did _ kill you.'

'You didn't.' Clark had made that decision all by himself. Bruce didn’t deserve the blame. 

'It was my fault, what happened, You have to know that, Clark.' 

It hadn’t helped, Bruce’s anger, the fighting, but neither had Clark helped himself, so self righteous when he could have been understanding. They had both made mistakes. 

'I saw that you were scared of me, you had every right to be, I hurt people you cared about, Bruce,' Clark pleaded with him to understand, 'My recklessness, that fight with Zod, I had no idea what I was doing and people died,'

'Yes, but-'

'Isn't that what you told me, isn't that why you were so angry, Bruce, because of all the people I hurt, all the people that died because of me, that could die if I lost control, that will die, if something like the monster that Lex created, is created from me? It  _ could _ happen to me Bruce. It might.'

'It wasn't my decision to make, Clark, I had no right. I knew nothing,  _ nothing _ , about you.' Bruce stood back from the bed, 'and I took it upon myself to rid the world of you because you were  _ different _ . That's about as fucked up as it gets.'

Clark used his hands to try and calm Bruce, let his voice be level, soft, 'Bruce, you were scared, you saw a threat and you acted with prejudice, but you also stopped yourself,  _ you _ did that.'

Bruce shook his head, as if to disagree, though Clark was sure he remembered that rightly.

'You saved my mother, Bruce.'

He looked at Clark and gave an indignant huff, as if that act deserved no praise.

'You saved  _ me _ .'

Bruce made to counter but snapped his mouth shut. He stared at Clark, waiting for something, and must have found it, because he soon moved back to sink into the chair at Clark's bedside. He slumped forward, elbows on the mattress and thick dark hair within reaching distance of Clark's twitchy fingers.

'Everybody makes mistakes, Bruce, but not everybody learns from them, sets them right again.'

'Clark, you should hate me.' He said it without looking up.

'I don't.' Clark replied, finally snaking his fingers into the hair that was as rich in texture as its wave promised. 'You're a good man Bruce.'

Bruce sucked in a harsh breath at that statement. Pulled his hair from Clark's grasp. 'I'm not,' he said, facing Clark, his eyes narrowed, 'I've done so many horrible things, Clark.'

Clark didn't know what things, but he could see that they weighed on him, whatever they were. Enough that he pulled every inch of himself from Clark's reach and sat into the back of the armchair.

'I'll be here, to wake you if you need me, Clark.' He folded his arms, 'Go back to sleep.'

Clark couldn't make Bruce change his mind. So he closed his eyes and let his breathing even out. He would have to find another way to help Bruce let go.

He had time.

It was Diana that helped him, in the end.

When Clark woke to sunshine streaming through the windowed walls of Bruce's bedroom, the man was no longer at his watch post. Clark strained to listen for his voice, and though his powers weren’t fully back to normal, he could make out the sound of him arguing with someone... Diana. From somewhere away and... it sounded like... underground? He used his vision to make out nothing but cavernous space going down well below where the garage started outside. That would be the labs, then, surely. Where Clark had lain, safe but broken, while Bruce soothed his trauma with gentle promises.

He could hear and see his ma and Alfred in the tiny kitchen, arguing good naturedly over the best way to prepare breakfast for everyone in such a small space.

He stretched his hearing again to eavesdrop on the argument that was actually none of his business. But Bruce was angry, Diana was placating, and Clark could hear his name. He was curious.

'If I had any idea you had it with you I would not have even let you in here! I want it gone.'

'I understand,'

'It could kill him, Diana, you have no clue what that stuff even does!'

'Bruce, I know.'

'Don't give me that look, I am not being hysterical.'

'I'm listening to you Bruce,'

'You are still here!'

'I want you to listen to me too.'

'Oh my god.'

'It's a very small piece. And we don't know what it will do to Clark-'

'Then why on Earth would we risk it!'

'Because it might help him.'

Silence (Clark was sure he only imagined the sound of Bruce tapping his feet with impatience).

'What if it actually counters the effects of the green kryptonite.'

The tapping stopped abruptly.

Clark wasn't sure what they had down there. But if it was some substance that Diana had been working on - whatever she and Alfred had been doing away - that could protect him from the green glowing rocks of his nightmares, it would be worth whatever the cost of the tests might be.

Because the green rocks, the kryptonite, were an invaluable weapon against another attack from Krypton should there be one. Or against Clark himself if he were to become a threat, which... wasn't a new concept. It was a fear he'd always held. He knew that. 

But if there was some way to fight against it, so that Bruce would be willing to keep the green kryptonite at hand for future threats…

Clark had to get down there.

It took him longer than it should have just to get out of bed. He didn't have time to mess around looking for clothes or shoes. He didn't need them anyway, everybody here was already fully aware of who he was and what he was impervious to. Not needing to worry about loose gravel or cold temperatures was not going to be a problem. 

It did then also take him far too long to find the entrances and exits to the structure under the ground. Especially for someone with x-ray vision (he was quietly glad that Bruce was not around to witness it). But he made it, eventually. And being that for Clark, far too long was really only a minute or so to Bruce and Diana, he made it with enough time to find them still arguing.

'Clark, no! You can't be here,' Bruce said, or started to say. By the time he had finished his sentence, Clark had already found the substance in question, a very small, gold rock and plucked it from its ornate box on the stainless steel bench of the open, cavernous room.

'Clark, you should not just grab it,' Diana said, having watched him pick it up and moved to take it from him. 'It could be dangerous!'

But Clark wasn't listening. He was holding the rock in his hand and it felt  _ nothing _ like the green kryptonite. It really, it felt like... nothing.

'It's okay,' Clark said, slowing down now so that Bruce could see and hear him. And he wasn't happy, if the thunderous look on his face was anything to go by. 'It's not doing anything.'

'Clark, you need to put that down, we need to be careful about this.' Bruce had a hand out to Clark as well, both he and Diana standing by, reacting to Clark as if he was some kind of skittish animal.

'Do you have it here, Bruce?'

'Have what?' Bruce asked, but the hesitation in his expression suggested he knew exactly what Clark was looking for.

'The green rock, where is it?'

'No, Clark. Absolutely not.'

'We're in the lab,' Clark said, looking around him, 'You can hold it far enough away that it won't hurt me, and just start walking closer until I feel it.' Clark worked to keep any pleading out of his voice. The best way to get what he wanted now was to appeal to Bruce's reason. 'You know there really isn't any safer way to test this.'

Diana and Bruce turned to each other with unreadable expressions.

'And Diana is here to get it away from me quickly, should she need to.'

‘It’s what we’ve been working towards, Bruce, a way to keep him safe from this, from Lex, more permanently,’ Diana said, turned towards Bruce now with the same calm, reasonable strength. 

‘Please, Bruce.’ Clark knew he could find it on his own, given enough time. In fact it wouldn’t take long to go through the lab and find the one structure he couldn’t see through, if Bruce was holding it in lead. But he wanted to keep Bruce on side for this, and for everything, if he could. Wanted to keep this - friendship, trust, care, whatever it was - now that he had it. ‘Please help me.’ He was maybe laying it on a bit thick, but it pulled at something inside him, to know that Bruce was not impervious to it. 

The great Bruce Wayne, the terrifying Batman, brought down by a Kansas farmboy’s batted lashes. 

‘Okay, but I am against this, for the record.’

‘I’ve heard that before,’ Clark said, and couldn’t hide his smile, ‘And it turned out just fine, remember?’

‘Yes I remember, Clark, it was yesterday.’ Bruce said, rolling his eyes despite the scowl. ‘Give me a minute.’ And went in search of what they needed.

Bruce returned quickly with the lead box, not quite what Clark was expecting, white and rectangular, with a hinged lid and a locking mechanism that required Bruce’s fingerprint. ‘It’s only lead lined,’ Bruce said, addressing Clark’s unasked question, ‘so that it’s not toxic to handle.’

‘Oh, I wasn’t… I mean, yeah, it doesn’t look very… lead-y.’ 

‘It’s Polyethylene. You would usually use these to store radioactive materials. I guess this counts.’ Bruce pulled the lid back and the green from the Kryptonian rock shone bright and ominous. Just the sight of it had Clark breathing faster.

Bruce was standing about thirty feet away, Diana between them, and Clark held fast to the small gold rock in his hand. 

‘You can come closer,’ Clark said, clenching his fists and standing firm.

Bruce moved a few steps, maybe five feet forward, and stopped. 

Clark took stock of how he felt. A little weak, but no more than before. Breathing felt normal, his head felt fine. No stomach pains, no heaviness. ‘Closer, I’m okay.’

Bruce hesitated, but Diana nodded at him and he looked back to Clark and then walked the same distance again. They waited a few minutes, Clark still feeling the same. After nodding again to Bruce’s silent question, he walked another five feet in and stopped. Fifteen feet. Clark still felt fine.

Bruce made it all the way to within a foot of Clark before he started to feel woozy. A little nauseous. Could feel a headache coming on. 

‘Okay, you’re starting to look pale, Clark,’ Diana said carefully.

‘Yeah, I feel it.’

‘Okay that’s enough,’ Bruce said, making to move away. Clark reached out to grab his forearm, no strength, just suggestion, in his hold. 

‘We need a control.’

‘No!- 

But Clark had already dropped the gold rock. And as soon as it left his hand he felt the crippling effect of the green kryptonite. It doubled him over. 

Diana moved swiftly to grab the box from Bruce and close it, move it back to the other side of the room. 

‘Jesus  _ Christ _ , Clark!’ Bruce said, dropping to his knees to grab Clark and hold him up.

‘It’s okay, I’m okay,’ he said, smiling as the pain dissipated.

‘You’re okay?’ Bruce asked, checking him over, running a hand over his chest.

‘It works!’

‘It works,’ Bruce repeated, eyes wide with shock.

‘It works!’ Diana called from the other side of the room, elated. 

It worked. A substance that could dull the effects of the green Kryptonite meant they had a counter agent. Clark took a deep breath, holding fast to Bruce as he clutched at Clark still. They had found a way to keep him safe. 

  
  


###  Bruce

Bruce was on the ground with Clark in his arms, once again, Clark’s life in his hands. Only this time it had been Clark’s recklessness that found them there. Only this time Clark was smiling up at him, eyes shining, holding Bruce in return. As if Bruce was someone who deserved to be held.

Diana was running to them, smiling her own wide smile, and she rescued the gold kryptonite from the ground where Clark had dropped it. 

‘We need more,’ she said, tucking the rock back into it’s box. ‘I may have to steal Alfred from you again, Bruce, so that we can transition as much of the green kryptonite as possible.’

‘Not all of it,’ Clark said, smile dropping slightly, but not all the way. He was so damn affable. ‘You need to keep some of it. Who knows what else is out there. Or what Lex might be capable of.’

‘Lex is in prison,’ Bruce said, ignoring the look he was getting from Clark, ‘And we can find another way.’

‘Bruce,’ Clark said, still holding tight to Bruce’s arms, but sitting up straighter now, the effects of the kryptonite having already seemed to wear off, ‘That doesn’t make any sense and you know it.’ Bruce did know it, and it  _ was  _ ridiculous, his mind was telling him not to discount their greatest weapon against the abuse of Clark’s power. But he could not bring himself to want it in his lab, to want it anywhere where it could get to Clark. Cause him harm. ‘Bruce,’ Clark said, squeezing slightly with his hands into Bruce’s forearms, ‘I need you to keep it here. I need you to keep it safe for me.’

‘You shouldn’t ask that of me Clark,’ and Bruce looked to Diana for help, because surely she would be on the right side of this. Surely she could see that Bruce should never again be trusted with that kind of power over Clark. But she was smiling that half smile, that  _ knowing  _ smile of hers and nodding her head.

‘You are the right person to be trusted with it,’ she said. And Bruce could see his arguments failing him. 

‘Please Bruce, nobody else could keep it safer than you. Here.’

Bruce looked down into eyes, blue and beautiful, and knew he couldn’t say no.

‘Okay,’ he said, resigned, and Clark squeezed him again.

‘Thank you,’ he said, resting his head against Bruce’s shoulder and letting go to then wrap him in a hug, ‘Thank you, Bruce.’

‘Let me go and speak with Alfred,’ Diana said, heading back to the elevator with that smile still in place, ‘we should aim to get going by tonight. If we can find a way to optimise the process, we could start more rigorous testing,’

Bruce knew she was right. They needed to know exactly what quantities, what distances, what doses, they were dealing with. And he would need to find out whether the gold kryptonite had any harmful side effects, and whether it would be viable to be made into something permanent that Clark could wear to keep him safe.

‘Oh jeez, I should get back to ma, lord knows where she thinks I’ve gone.’

And god, Bruce had completely forgotten about Martha being in the house with Alfred. He let Clark go and stood, reaching down to help him up. ‘You should’ve maybe thought about that before you came flying down here.’

‘I didn't  _ fly _ .’ 

‘Clark,’ Bruce said sternly. How had he never recognised how shockingly human Clark was? ‘Promise me you won’t ever do anything like that again.’ 

Clark lost his smile for the first time since realising the stone had worked. He looked at Bruce, Bruce could feel him really looking, ‘I promise I won’t, if you promise to allow me not to have to.’

Bruce watched him, warily, as Clark stepped close.

‘If you treat me like you would treat a partner, like Diana. Not like a kicked puppy. Not like a monster. Like a friend.’

Could it be that easy? Could they be friends now?  _ Friend  _ wasn’t exactly what Bruce was thinking when he looked at Clark (when he thought about Clark, too, too often), but friend was more than he deserved.

‘I can probably do that,’ Bruce said, swallowing his apprehension. This was for Clark.

And Clark’s responding smile was worth all of it. 


	11. Empty

### Clark

The next week saw Clark make himself at home in Bruce’s lake house. If he thought space in the small house was going to be a problem, he was mistaken. Bruce spent most of his free time hiding in the labs, which meant that Clark and he were almost never in the house itself at the same time, except to sleep. Bruce explained that Batman had not been as prevalent as usual during the time of Clark's recovery, and was therefore owed a lot of hours of catching up. 

Clark thought that was probably bullshit, because Bruce wasn’t so much catching up on being Batman as he was _avoiding_ Clark. 

What he did see of Bruce during the day was fascinating to Clark. Watching him become Bruce Wayne for a teleconference was like watching him step into a seamless costume. One that seemed to take him a long time to step back out of, once the necessity of the lie was over with. But the calmer, smoother, stoic and self possessed version of Bruce that emerged, radiated a kind of power that, honestly, was captivating to Clark.

Unfortunately, what time he did get to spend with the real Bruce was mostly clinical. They devised small ways to test Diana's compound as safely as possible, which Bruce reluctantly allowed. And Clark spent his time trying to follow direction without stumbling over himself, to not tie his tongue up in knots attempting to seem unaffected by Bruce’s ridiculously well tailored suits (the _vests_ , the vests were killing him), to not be disappointed every time Bruce pulled away from casual contact. 

It was made all the more difficult by just how close, but not close enough, they stood together during the tests. They were testing Clark's natural limitations to the green kryptonite and it seemed only a small amount was necessary if in close enough proximity, to shut down Clark's enhanced abilities. When vulnerable in that way, Clark could be injured just like any normal human person and every small cut, every bruise on Clark’s skin was amazing to Clark. To watch himself be _harmed_ like that, so easily; to feel the pain, so different from the soft, pleasant sensation of touch that he was used to. He didn’t _like_ it necessarily, but it was... interesting. He couldn’t explore it any further though, because each time he was hurt, Bruce would become agitated, snappy. A sadness seemed to settle on Bruce as a result. 

It was also, though, the only time Bruce would touch him.

Removing the green rock was the quickest way to allow his body to heal. But the gold kryptonite, if placed close enough (‘depending and variable to the placement and size of the green kryptonite they were using’, he could hear Bruce say), would return Clark's powers to him and allow him to heal to the same extent, without having to alter the green rock's proximity. It seemed, even to Bruce, to verify that the rock would be a viable counter agent to the green kryptonite. 

Clark had his suspicions that the only reason Bruce allowed any of the damage to Clark’s skin was so he could test his healing factors under different coloured light. Yellow seemed to work the best, the feeling of it hitting him, feeding him, sinking into his skin, felt the most like real sunlight. Bruce spent a lot of that time muttering and pacing, admonishing himself for having not understood aspects of Clark’s physiology that even Clark himself didn’t fully understand. 

Clark was starting to recognise that Bruce admonished himself over too many things, most of which were far beyond his control.

Bruce worked tirelessly on dosages, distances- figures and more figures - while Alfred spent his days with Diana trying to convert more of the substance from green to gold. So between being avoided and being a guinea pig, Clark spent as much time as he could with his mother before she had to get back to the farm.

The decision to fly into the fight, to throw himself at danger and not stress the consequence, weighed heavy on her, though she never said as much to Clark. He felt it though, in the way she unconsciously touched him whenever he stepped within range, and smiled, bittersweet and heartbreaking, whenever she thought he wasn't looking. 

'I hate that you thought I was gone, that whole time,' he admitted to her one lazy morning by the lake, 'I feel sick thinking of you trying to hold all that in on your own.'

'It was awful, I won't lie to you Clark,' she said with the same hushed confidence, 'but at the same time, I had a hope.' His ma looked back to the house and smiled. 'Bruce came to see me, not long after he'd saved me and brought me back to the farm. He asked me to let him keep you safe,' taking up Clark's hand with her own, his ma squeezed it gently, 'Asked me to let him keep what had happened to you between us, until he knew it would be safe to let you go. Until he could keep me safe from anyone who might be suspicious about you and Superman going missing at the same time.'

'So you never told anyone?'

'I had Lois and Diana visit from time to time. And Alfred. And I knew, even though they wouldn't say, I knew that you couldn't be dead. There was something in their eyes, it gave me hope for you.'

Clark took his mother’s hand and held it as tight as he dared. She was so much stronger then he remembered to give her credit for. 

'Anyway, it sure makes it easier for me now, not to have to tell people, oops! My son's not really dead.'

'Ma!' Clark laughed. She had a point though. And Clark supposed that Bruce had done him yet another favour on the list that was now too long for him to ever repay. Bruce had spared his mother from the stress of waiting for Clark to come back, but let her keep the hope alive that he might not be totally gone. 

Bruce had continued paying the rent on Clark's apartment while he was gone - along with the mortgage on the farm - ready and waiting for him to move back into once he was well enough (at least once _Bruce_ declared him so). As far as Clark’s friends and colleagues were aware, he had spent his time away helping his mother recover from her kidnapping, and then left to investigate leads on the ‘Batman’ who had rescued her. At least he had some interesting (if entirely false) information to feed back to Perry about the Gotham Bat when he returned.

Lois came and went, with paperwork for Clark, stories for him to get started on while he was 'on leave' and coming up with half truths they could use to misdirect anyone curious about his time over the last four weeks. Her dislike for Bruce seemed to lessen, a little, as the week progressed. Clark had to admit that he was quietly proud of how steadfastly she fought for him through the whole mess. 

'Just promise me that you won't do anything like that again, Clark.'

'You know I can't promise that Lois,' he said, careful to keep his voice low.

She shook her head at him, anger evident in the red of her cheeks and the clench of her jaw. 'They don't deserve it.'

'Who doesn't?'

'Anyone, everyone. None of them deserve you Clark.'

'They don't deserve you either Lois, I don't see that stopping you from jumping into harm's way to get to the truth of a story.'

'That's different,'

'Oh it is?’

'Yeah, I'm not you. You're a big soft puppy Clark, you can't handle that life like I can.'

He rolled his eyes at her but let the argument lie. There would be no winning against Lois. 

'I'll do my best okay? I have Bruce and Diana to fight with me now. And hey - I'll probably just keep coming back to life anyway, right?' Which maybe wasn't the right thing to say, as Lois sobered and looked at him sharply.

'Just be careful with Bruce, Clark. I'm not sure you can trust him.'

And though Clark didn't contradict her, nodded as if he was taking that advice on board, he knew he wouldn’t. He already trusted Bruce. He knew Bruce better than Lois did, didn't see him with the same prejudice. And he knew that Bruce's willingness to give him the exact same warning only endeared him to Clark more. 

The time for Clark to finally go back to Metropolis came too quickly. With his mother already back at the farm, Clark's last days had been spent alternating between bothering Bruce in the lab, kicking his feet in the water by the house, and watching Bruce attempt to sleep, for far too few hours at a time, on the daybed around the corner from where Clark was meant to be sleeping. He did sleep, off and on, willing away the memories of pain and fear that hit hardest when Bruce was any distance from him. Succeeding best with the sound of Bruce’s heartbeat in his ears, or the sight of his broad shoulders through the wall, rising and falling with the steady breaths of sleep. 

He found Bruce in the lab, tirelessly watching the monitors, and tried to find the right words to say goodbye. Or not goodbye, if that might be a possibility. Or anything, really, to convey exactly how he was feeling about the last week (month) of their time together. Which, clearly, he wasn’t sure about at all. 

Bruce spun in his chair as soon as he heard him come in and was up before Clark had a chance to say a word.

'Looks like you’re ready,' Bruce said, rolling his sleeves and stepping forward, making fleeting eye contact before gesturing to the elevator, ‘I’ll call the pilot.’

'I can fly myself,' Clark argued, as much to rile Bruce up as to think it a rational decision.

'Jesus, Clark,' Bruce said, shaking his head but looking at him at least, 'You do know you're supposed to be keeping the Superman thing a secret, don't you?’ 

'I'm fast enough, nobody will see me, Bruce. You worry too much.' And jeez, it was far too fun to make him mad.

'The fact you've managed it up to now is a miracle.' The clench of his jaw, sharpening the strength of it even further, was exactly the reaction Clark was looking for. ‘Just let me fly you.' 

Clark couldn't really say no to that. Especially if it meant that Bruce would fly with him.

The helicopter picked them up from the lake house, Bruce's pilot not giving Clark a second glance. He didn't have much in the way of luggage, Lois having brought him some things from the apartment (including his glasses, now perched happily upon his nose) and the few things that Bruce had loaned him, insisting he just keep, taking up hardly any room in the duffle by his side.

'It was a pleasure having you, Master Clark, and a pleasure to see you recovering so well,' Alfred said as he passed a box to Clark.

'What's this Alfred?'

'Just some leftovers and a few baked goods, Sir, to tide you over so you needn't cook on your first night home.'

'Oh,' Clark said, touched at the gesture, 'That's so kind, thank you Alfred.' Clark leaned over to envelop the man in a tight hug. Yep, he would be missing Alfred too. 'Thank you for everything.'

'You're more than welcome, really Clark, now,’ he stood back to let Clark go, ‘the pilot’s out there waiting, so off you go, both of you.’ 

'Okay, okay,' he replied with a smile, stepping back and giving the man his space. 

'I'll be back shortly, Alfred,' Bruce said, stepping to Clark and holding a hand close to, but not touching, his back.

'Very good sir.'

And with that they climbed into the passenger seats of the waiting helicopter and prepared to take off.

Clark watched the lake house get smaller and smaller, a pang in his chest, and let the presence of Bruce in the seat across from him settle it. It was fine, it would be fine, he was just going home. 

It wasn't fine.

Bruce walked Clark to his apartment, Five floors up a six floor walk up, and waited patiently while Clark fumbled to open the door.

'You can survive a nuclear missile to the chest, but you can't find the right key to your front door?'

'Sorry, they all look the same,' Clark fumbled through the keys, too conscious of Bruce practically breathing down his neck in the cramped space of the hallway. How was anyone supposed to concentrate like that?

'Did you ever think to label them?'

'Well, I mean… no. Do people do that?' Clark looked up at that into amused, blue (so blue) eyes.

Bruce looked like he was adding this moment to a mental checklist, but didn't offer further commentary.

When Clark finally had the door open he led him into the apartment. Which… looked very different than how Clark had left it. As he took stock of the changes, Bruce put his bag by the lounge. 

'I had a team come through and get it ready for you…'

'You… what? You did this?' It wasn't just that the apartment was clean, but it had four or five new pieces of furniture, new throw pillows, a comfy looking blanket over his couch. There were flowers on the table in the dining nook. It was… lovely. But it was totally above and beyond appropriate.

'Is it… You don't like it? It's too much isn't it. Please don't tell me Alfred was right…'

Clark didn’t know how to feel about it, Bruce looked so torn. Was this just about guilt? Or was this somehow the only way Bruce knew how to express his feelings for Clark. 

'No, I… it's definitely an improvement. Thank you Bruce. This was really thoughtful,' Clark said, smiling under the knowledge that Bruce cared and was just terrible at showing it. 

'Yes, well. I actually… need to get back to Gotham,' Bruce said, predictably stone faced in the presence of _feelings_. 

'I guess you do,' Clark said, following Bruce as he started to back out of the apartment. 

'Try and take better care of yourself this time,' he said, stepping around the side table to back gracefully through the still open front door. 'And don't be a stranger.'

'Bruce, don't… When...' Clark tried to voice what he couldn’t even articulate in his head. 'I won't if you won't.' And failed, of course. 

Bruce's lip tugged up in the corner, barely a smirk, but the smile was in his eyes. Clark waved stupidly and watched him turn around, ready to head back down the stairs.

‘Actually I…’ Bruce pulled something from his pocket and he turned back to Clark. ‘I have something for you.’ 

Clark watched Bruce’s hand reach out to him, open, palm up, with a small bag inside it.

‘For you.’

‘What is it?’ Clark asked, stepping forward to meet Bruce’s outstretched hand.

‘It’s, I had it set. Once the testing was done. It’s just the small piece we’d been working with, Diana thinks she’ll be done with a larger piece soon. Something I can do more with. But this-’ 

Clark took it from Bruce’s palm carefully, opened it and turned it into his own palm. 

‘This is to keep you safe in the meantime.’

A ring.

‘It seemed like the most practical way you could keep it on you, and not be conspicuous.’

It was a ring.

It was silver, with the small, square, gold stone set on the inside of the ring, flush to the flat metal band.

‘It’s titanium, so it should hold its shape well and not scratch.’

Clark was listening to Bruce in the background, but the majority of his attention was on the ring. It was… a lot to take in. He held it in his palm and looked at it carefully, and it was beautiful, though there was a small bump on the lip, opposite the stone setting.

‘That’s a button.’ Bruce said, answering Clark’s unasked question.

‘A button for what?’

‘If you press it in for longer than five seconds it will activate a cover to spread over the surface and the ring goes black.’

Clark did as instructed and watched as the ring slowly morphed from silver to a matte black, but without covering over the stone setting

‘For when you’re superman, so you and he don’t both have the same ring.’

‘Oh.’ Clark hadn’t even thought of that. Jesus, it must have cost a fortune. 

‘And provided it doesn’t cause any damage we’re not yet aware of, you probably should be wearing it at all times.’

‘Right, that’s… yeah.’ God, Clark’s ability to articulate had absolutely disappeared. 

‘And you’ll need to come back to the labs, at least once a week, for tests, to make sure there aren’t any side effects.’

‘Bruce, I… thank you,’ Clark said, voice somewhat breathless, totally unsure of himself. Did this mean something? Other than that Bruce wanted to keep Clark safe? Wanted to keep seeing him?

‘It’s nothing, it was the most logical choice…’ And the words Bruce used were at odds with the expression he was trying to hide from Clark. That he was nervous...that he was… embarrassed? 

‘Bruce it’s lovely, really, thank you.’

‘You’re welcome, Clark,’ Bruce said, holding his hands behind him as he walked slowly backwards to the door, ‘I’m sorry but I really do have to go.’

‘Right, of course, well,’ Clark didn’t want him to go. He wanted to figure out what this meant. He just had no idea how to do that. ‘I guess I’ll see you in a week.’ 

‘I’ll see you then.’

‘Bye, Bruce.’

Clark waited and watched while Bruce backed out the door and down the stairs. Then he stared back down at the ring in his hand. The ring that was for his… safety. Which just made the gesture so confusing, somewhere between romantic and platonic. Between beautiful and strange. 

He looked around him at a loss. He’d been stuffed back into his normal life but everything had shifted, just enough, to skew his entire perspective. And it wasn’t fine, because Clark was left standing in his now unfamiliar apartment, too quiet, too empty, with an ache in his chest that had nothing to do with his scar.

  
  


### Bruce

Once Bruce had made it down to the bottom of Clark’s apartment building’s million flights of stairs, he took a breath. He covered his face with his hands and took two more. 

The ring. 

The ring had seemed like the perfect solution when it had come to him in the labs. And while he designed it. And while he was having it made. Even all the back and forth conversations with Lucius as he fought the specifications had him sure that it was going to be everything Clark needed.

And then he’d _seen_ it. And it was beautiful. Too beautiful, really, to be appropriate. 

Which was why he’d decided not to give it to Clark. And why it was crazy that he had kept it in his pocket, had brought it with him all that way. That he couldn’t leave without giving it to Clark. 

Because all of a sudden Clark wouldn’t be in the same room, on the same grounds, in Bruce’s immediate vicinity. Wouldn’t be close enough for Bruce to reach out to, should something go wrong. 

He knew as soon as he saw Clark’s expression, he had made the wrong choice. Because Clark had _wanted_ it to mean something more than what it was. Clark _wanted_ whatever it was the forced proximity had put between them to be real. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t real. It was a side effect of Bruce’s ridiculous experiments. It was the ghost of what Bruce had been suffering all those long nights with Clark’s lifeless body. 

It wasn’t real.

Which was so much easier to tell himself when he’d been the only one feeling it. 

He got back to Wayne Enterprises, got back to the helicopter, got back to the lake house and still hadn’t worked out a way to fix the mess he’d dug them both into. 

  
Because maybe he didn’t _want_ to.


	12. Home

###  Clark

Clark had come a little unstuck. He’d placed the leftovers from Alfred into his already stocked refrigerator. He’d packed away his few items of clothing. He’d taken laps of the apartment to check mark all the new furniture and reminded himself it was not pity that motivated Bruce - the man simply had too much money and no one to spend it on. 

After a week with a house full of people, his apartment just felt so... empty.

And the ring was burning a hole in his pocket (he hadn’t quite had the wherewithal to put it on his finger) He needed to get it off his chest, the confusion, the restlessness, the frustration. 

He knew just who to call.

'Well hello Smallville,' Lois said as he greeted her at the door, half an hour later. She had Thai takeout with her, more pho for Clark (beef and tofu, because he was becoming obsessed) and plenty of cold rolls. As she entered and passed the bag to Clark, Lois surveyed the room with surprise, 'What's happened in here?' she asked. “I was only here four days ago.’

'Bruce,' Clark answered, taking the food from the entrance to the kitchen to get bowls and cutlery, 'he had some people come through and make it ready for me to settle back in.'

'Rich people,' Lois said, shaking her head.

'He meant well,' Clark argued, not wanting to let Lois get her teeth into it. 'It was a nice gesture.'

Though it was a little creepy. The apartment had been cleaned, brand new linens put on the bed in the bedroom, there was a new vintage armchair and stools had been set up at the kitchen's bench, making it into a breakfast bar. But he hadn’t asked Lois over to talk about the apartment. He had questions. He needed answers.

'There’s actually something else he gave me,' Clark said quickly, pulling the ring from his pocket and holding it out to Lois.

‘What the fuck is that.’

‘It’s the rock I was telling you about, the one that counters the toxicity of the green kryptonite.’

‘This is it?’ Lois said, picking up the ring carefully and bringing it close to her face.

‘Yes, that stone in the setting, is the stone that Diana made.’

‘And Bruce just thought, hey, I’ll make it into this super fucking fancy wedding band.’

‘It’s not a  _ wedding band _ , Lois,’ Clark argued, though it sounded unconvincing, even to himself, ‘It was the most logical design for something I could wear all the time.’

‘Oh yeah? And what are you gonna do when people notice that Clark Kent and Superman have matching rings?’

‘Well, it does this,’ Clark demonstrated the matte finish from the secret cover.

‘Holy shit,’ Lois said, watching transfixed as the tiny black panels took over the ring. ‘Okay, I’ll admit, that’s pretty genius.’

‘What does this mean, Lois?’ 

‘It means you can wear the ring and keep your identity safe, Clark.’

‘No, I mean, the fact that he gave me a ring, does that mean something?’

Lois took her eyes off the ring and fixed them on Clark instead. ‘Do you want it to mean something?’

‘I don’t want it to  _ not  _ mean something.’

‘I can’t tell you what the ring means, Clark, you have to ask Bruce,’ she said, cocking an eyebrow, ‘But I will tell you this. That man has been obsessed with you for a long time, and that kind of obsession can be dangerous.’

‘Lois-’

‘But it also saved your life.’ She placed the ring back into his open palm. ‘And I don’t think it means nothing, but that’s all I’m going to say.’ She sniffed and flicked her hair over her shoulder. 'Alright, let's shut up and eat,' she offered instead. So they did.

He also slowly, carefully slipped the ring onto the middle finger of his right hand. 

It fit perfectly.

Later, when Lois had left, Clark wrapped himself in his new, fresh smelling comforter, closed his eyes, and hoped that the calm he'd gained over the week at Bruce's would follow him here into sleep. He twisted the ring in his finger and wondered if maybe it could keep him safe from his nightmares too. 

Instead, he felt the memories grab for him. 

This time, it wasn’t just that he could see it, the red sky, the green smoke, the horrible misshapen form of the monster, growing and growing as the bombs hit it. This time he could feel the force pummeling him, the pain of holding the monster still while they bombed it, the despair at realising the explosions had only made everything worse.

He tried to breathe through it, open his eyes, find his centre, but every time he closed his eyes again the memories flooded him. And finally, after what felt like hours, he opened his eyes, to find the memories just kept coming. Not visions this time but impressions. The sense of how weak and dizzy the kryptonite had made him, the pain of the battle with Bruce, the frustration of not being listened to, the anger, the fear for his mother. Wave after wave of terror and anxiety crashing over him and he couldn't, he  _ couldn't _ just lie there, sit there, stand there, and take it. 

He strode to the fire escape, sped up the stairs and onto the roof and soared. Up, as high up as he could go, fleeing his empty apartment, but all it accomplished was to make the night even more quiet, to leave Clark even more alone. 

He was on his way to the lake house before he even realised he'd made the decision. 

Bruce was in the cave, he could see, working under the hood of the broken frame of a huge black vehicle. Clark took the elevator down, probably alerting Alfred, in the kitchen, to his presence. And if Bruce was surprised to see him, he didn't show it. Maybe Clark flying into his workshop with no more notice than the doors opening and a streak of the light bouncing off him was a totally normal occurrence. Clark couldn't tell, actually, he really didn't know that much about Bruce's life as Batman. 

But once Clark had stopped, once Bruce had tilted his head up to nod at him stoically, he must have seen something of Clark's desperation on his face, because he practically threw his socket onto a tray and took a step up to Clark. Clark who, now that he was here, had no idea what to say for himself.

'Clark?' Bruce asked, and when no response was forthcoming, asked again, 'Clark, are you okay?' He reached out a tentative hand and Clark watched, transfixed, as that hand drifted closer. And selfishly, so selfishly, he refused to answer. Because surely Bruce would touch him now, as he always did, to relieve Clark's pain. Even if never for anything else. 'Clark, what's wrong, what's happened?'

Clark tracked Bruce's hand as it finally landed on his arm, closing his eyes to it as it cupped him at the elbow. This was what he needed, grounding. Bruce as the tether to hold him steady. 

When he opened his eyes again Bruce was so close, he could feel his breath. It was warm and sharp with a strong tea of some kind, peppermint maybe. He let his body melt into the touch, let himself fall into Bruce. 

'I can't make it stop. On my own, Bruce, I can't make it stop,' he said finally, only just loud enough for Bruce to hear him.

'The memories?'

Clark nodded his head into Bruce's shoulder. 'Please let me stay here. With you.'

'Clark, that's not a good idea.' Bruce said, though he didn't attempt to dislodge Clark, 'We can call Lois, or Martha,' 

But Clark honestly felt like this was the only answer. Whatever it was they had, whatever strange cord was pulling them together, it was real, and he was sure that was the reason Bruce was so hesitant to touch him. Hesitant to allow himself to give in to it. 

'It's you Bruce, it has to be you.' He felt Bruce's breath catch underneath him, perceptible, and a sure sign that Clark was under his skin. He was torn between feeling as if he was forcing this on Bruce, or showing him it was okay to let go. 'I can't put this on mom, I don't want her to know.' Which was a simple truth, 'And Lois... I love Lois, I do, she's like family. But being around her is not the same. I don't know what it is about you Bruce, but you make it all go away.'

The sigh Bruce let escape as he finally wrapped his arms around Clark drove home the conviction that he was right about all of it.

'Okay, let's get up to the house,' Bruce said and led them back up to the lake house without any more arguments. 

'Master Clark, so nice to see you again already,' Alfred said as they entered, not seeming at all surprised to see Clark there, 'But I'm afraid I must excuse myself, I was just on my way out.'

Clark smiled, a little embarrassed at being caught there, 'Sorry to be bombarding you again so soon,' he said, ducking his head. He was inclined to believe he was being overly dramatic except for the lingering horror of the memories, clinging to him, seeping into his skin.

'You are welcome anytime,' Alfred said, patting Clark on the shoulder as he passed by, 'Master Bruce, I'll be tinkering for a while downstairs if anyone needs me.'

Bruce simply nodded and let Alfred go. It was late, Alfred going down to "tinker" probably meant he would be keeping an eye and ear on the equipment in case any emergencies came through. Clark liked the idea of spending time there too, answering calls, alerting the team to anything that might not come through a direct channel. But in that moment all he wanted was to chase away the icky feeling still clinging to him. It made his skin crawl and he shivered hard enough to alert Bruce that he was still feeling off. 

'Well, at least you're dressed for bed,' Bruce said gently, placing a hand at the small of Clark's back to lead him to the bedroom. And god, Clark hadn't even bothered to put proper clothes on, just fled his apartment in his threadbare plaid pyjama pants and a white tank.

'Oh god, I didn't even get dressed.' He was still wearing the ring though. And if Bruce had noticed, he hadn’t said anything.

'It's okay, Clark, don't worry about it. Just get into bed okay?"

'Okay,' Clark let himself push back into the feel of Bruce's hand on him, reluctantly crawling under the covers once they got to the bed. Bruce made to pull the armchair back to its spot by the bed.

'You can't sleep in the chair, Bruce.'

Bruce raised an eyebrow at Clark.

'Please? There's room for both of us.'

'Barely,' Bruce countered, looking at the bed dubiously.

'Please don't sleep in the chair again,' Clark lifted the covers up beside him, holding his breath while he waited to see if Bruce would give in. And couldn't hide his smile, even as Bruce was scowling at him, as Bruce began stripping out of his under-suit and into soft grey sweatpants. Clark had never seen him in so few clothes before, had never noticed how much of his body was hidden underneath those suits, the broad, strong breadth of his shoulders, the definition of his chest, the thick and muscular arms. The scars.

Clark was a little (a lot) breathless at the sight of him. At the idea of having him finally so close. Though Bruce’s face was as impassive as ever.

'If you tell me for the record you think this is a bad idea, I will rip the ears off your bat suit,' Clark said, trying to make light of it all. 

The look he got in return was scathing.

'Bruce, can you just let it go, whatever it is that makes you think you need to punish yourself?'

'Clark,' Bruce sighed.

'Please, just, for me?'

'It's you I'm doing this for.'

'You're so stubborn,' Clark said, half under his breath, and Bruce huffed at the notion. 'The closer you are to me, the better I feel, so for tonight, can you just, just help me?'

Bruce looked at him, really  _ looked _ at him, for what felt like a long time, before moving closer and gently manoeuvring Clark down to his side - Clark allowing himself to be moved - and sliding in behind him, aligning their bodies and gathering himself around Clark. 

‘Close enough?’

Clark could feel all of Bruce pressed along the length of him, felt his arms wrap around him, felt the calm, even breathing, that metronome heartbeat, and felt himself relax, properly, for the first time all day. ‘It’s perfect, Bruce, perfect,' Clark let the words out on a breath, closing his eyes and sinking into the warmth and comfort of having Bruce tucked around him. 

He was asleep before he could even hear the reply.

###  Bruce

Bruce lay awake watching Clark for a while, caught by the joy and the disbelief of holding him in that way, so like and unlike the way he had held him that night in the lab, sick and desperate for the answers to bring Clark back to them, fully aware of how wrong it had been to touch him, but with no power to stop himself.

This was different, but Bruce couldn't decide if it was any less wrong. Wasn't he still just taking advantage of Clark? Letting him use Bruce as a crutch when he should be forcing him into finding healthy coping mechanisms, mechanisms that wouldn't tie him down? Breed co-dependence? Give Bruce this crazy power over him? A power that Bruce had very likely constructed as a product of his own failed experiments on Clark's neural responses to touch?

But for all of his doubts, he could feel the effect of his hold on Clark, and he wouldn't deny him that comfort. Not until he had a better one, a better way to treat it. 

For the moment, at least, he would hold fast to Clark. Feel the warmth and life of him, be the comfort he needed. And if Bruce took comfort too, in the smell of Thai spices, the strength of the chest under his hand, the soft skin of Clark's shoulders and arms, then he would give himself this, just this once, knowing the inevitable absence of it would be punishment enough. 

He didn't realise he had drifted off too, until he woke to the warmth of sunlight streaming into the house behind them. Clark was still sound asleep in his arms, having not moved at all in the night. Too scared to jostle Clark, lest he break whatever spell had fallen over them, Bruce allowed the soft dark hair to tickle his nose, the too hot heat of Clark's body to wash over him, the deep, quiet, rumbling of Clark's chest to vibrate under his hand. He allowed the gentle light of Clark to break through his darkness, tiny piece by tiny piece, terrified of how painful it would be to fill those holes again once the light was gone.

The reprieve couldn't last forever. And soon Clark was stirring, snuffling awake, turning over slightly at the feel of the weight at his back.

His smile at the sight of Bruce was blinding. The man himself was so beautiful, even first thing in the morning, Bruce was struck by the brilliance of him. Bright blue eyes that had seen horrible things, Bruce knew (had caused some of them), yet were still so ready to see only goodness. 

'Hey,' Clark said softly, smiling through the word. He lifted a hand and raked his fingers gently through the front of Bruce's hair, 'Bruce Wayne gets bed-head like the rest of us, huh?'

Bruce let himself lean into the touch for a second, maybe two, before pulling back from it. Clark's smile slowly dropping at the corners.

'Clark-' At the threat of Bruce's rejection, Clark turned his head away and dropped it into the pillow.

'It's too early for your self sacrificing, Bruce, come on,' he said, voice muffled by the bedding.

'Clark,’

‘No.’

'Clark, I need to tell you something.'

'What is it,' he asked, head up and attention gained.

'I think, I think what you're feeling for me... is a lie.'

Clark didn't actually respond with anything more than a flat stare, but the scepticism was palpable.

'I did something... to you. I did something...' Christ. Now that Bruce had decided to confess he couldn't figure out how the fuck to explain it. Clark was watching him intently, letting him finish. 'As part of the experimentation. Do you remember me telling you we recognised neurological activity in response to us talking to you?' 

Clark nodded. 

'Well we discovered, as we investigated... we discovered that touch,' he paused, took a breath, 'not just mine but Alfred's too, our touch stimulated a response much greater than just our voices had.' God, saying it out loud, knowing what they knew now about the sunlight, about their failures, Bruce's failures, it sounded so stupid. 'And I thought... I thought if I could touch you with enough intensity, with enough, god I don't even know what I was thinking...'

'Bruce it's okay, you tried everything you could think of, of course you would keep trying if it seemed like it was working.'

Bruce pulled away and sat up, trying his best to keep every part of his body away from the warm, rumpled, sleep addled body that crept closer and closer to him with every breath. 

'I should never have touched you like that without permission, Clark, I should never have violated you like that-'

'Bruce, no, stop-'

'It's the truth Clark, it's... I kissed you!'

But instead of shock, Clark looked at Bruce with a softness, a fondness he didn't know what to do with. Sitting up next to Bruce, he pressed their knees together.

'It's not real, what you're feeling Clark, it's just a side effect of the treatment, it's just-'

Clark shut him up with a hand over Bruce's mouth. 'Is this what you've been beating yourself up about?'

Bruce looked back at him, the level of disdain in his expression must have rivalled even Alfred's. Clark only smiled harder. Honestly, what did Bruce have to do to get him to understand?

'Bruce, the whole time I was... dead, or gone, or whatever you want to call it, I was somewhere away from my body, but I could hear you, I could  _ feel  _ you. I don't expressly remember it but the shadow of it is there. And yes, clinging to that shadow, that memory of comfort is part of what I need now but,' He let his palm drop from Bruce's mouth and took up Bruce’s fingers instead, held them between his two perfect hands. Bruce had no will left to deter him. 'You're belief that I was there, you're trust in my strength, in my power. Your absolute stubborn inability to give up,  _ that's _ what brought me back, Bruce. Without you I would be cut open and in the ground by now, or worse, we both know how much worse.'

'Doesn't that just prove me right, Clark-'

'No, you idiot,' he said, laughing and shaking his head, 'it makes this feeling real, it makes how much I care about you real, because it's based entirely on the feeling of how much you care about  _ me.' _

Bruce tried to interject, but Clark just spoke over the top of him.

'That's what a relationship is, Bruce, it's based on mutual care and affection. It's based on trust. You trusted that there was enough of me in there to come back to you. I trust you now, to keep me safe.'

'You don't even know me, I don't even know you.'

'I just don't believe that Bruce. Do you not care about me now that I'm back? Am I so different to the me you imagined was in here?'

Bruce wanted to argue but he couldn't. Because it wasn't true. Bruce hadn't just been enamoured with an  _ idea  _ of who Clark was, he had fallen for the dogged reporter, the selfless hero, the loving son, the fighter. All before Clark had even died that night, he just hadn’t been able to admit it to himself, so determined was he to hate him. And now... and now, he had fallen for the sweetness, the joy Clark found in everything, for his impetuousness, his kindness. Everything about him, really, was a gift that Bruce just didn't deserve. 

'No. You're exactly what I expected you to be. You're a good man, Clark, maybe one of the best I know.'

And Clark was smiling that smile again, breaking though all of Bruce's cracks, lighting him up from the inside. 

‘You made me a ring, Bruce.’

‘It was the most logical way for you to wear it!’

‘You could have made me a watch, or a wristband, or a small stud for the top of my ear. You could have done a hundred things. But you chose a ring.’

Bruce had had the exact same argument with himself, and come to all the same conclusions. But he’d been so afraid of what it meant. How much what he was feeling would hurt him. Would hurt Clark. 

Maybe he didn’t have to be afraid.

'Will you let me touch you, Bruce?' Clark asked, wide eyed and shining.

'You are touching me, Clark.' Bruce replied flexing the fingers held in Clark's hands.

'Oh my god, shut up,' and this time, Clark shut him up with his lips. He leaned into Bruce and kissed him so gently, lips barely brushing, it was like a tease. And Bruce fell for it, pushed into it, opened his mouth to it and let Clark in. Let his soft lips catch Bruce's and pull them in, let his tongue trace lightly against Bruce's tongue, and at the taste of him, pushed further still, deepening it into something more. Clark let go of Bruce's hands and climbed into his lap, Bruce pulling him closer by the thighs, his perfect thighs, he couldn't ignore the heat that pooled in him at the thought of them, at the weight of them.

This kiss was so much more than anything Bruce thought he had wanted. It was everything his other kiss to Clark's cold lips had been without. And it fuelled Bruce, Clark leaning into him, accepting him, wanting him, it pushed Bruce to kiss back with everything he could give.

And god, the feel of Clark under his hands. Heavy and crowding Bruce in, but pliant enough to allow Bruce to direct them. He slid his hands along the cotton covered length of Clark's thighs, to rest at Clark's ass, pressing into the firm meat of it. Clark's hands had made their way to the bare skin of Bruce's chest, and the contact there was enough, along with the slight rocking of their bodies, to take the kiss to something more.

Bruce let his mouth work it's way to Clark's throat, following his scent, biting gently at the sensitive skin below his ear and loving the sharp huffs of breath in Clark's response, letting his head fall back to give Bruce further purchase. He had wondered, at idle moments, how much pressure or sensation Clark would be able to feel like this. A lot, it would seem, if his responsiveness was anything to go by.

Bruce slid one hand further up his back and under Clark's shirt, greedy for more of that soft warm skin, and Clark arched into the touch, sliding his own hands across Bruce's chest, bringing one up over his throat, up through the short hair at the back of his head to comb through and then hold on, gripping tight, just the right side of painful. 

'Fuck, Clark.'

'Yeah, yes. We can,' Clark said through harsh breaths. And no, that hadn't been what Bruce meant, but  _ oh _ , he wanted to. 

Only, maybe that was a bad idea. Maybe that was too much all at once. 

'Wait, Clark,' Bruce pulled his mouth away from Clark's skin to lean back against the wall. Clark pulled back too, a hand still gripping Bruce's hair, but his hips stilled, his eyes focused. 

'What's wrong?'

'Nothing, I just don't...' he tried to explain his thought process, but it wasn't coming out right.

'You don't want to?'

'I do, I really do,' he pulled Clark closer to kiss him gently, make sure he knew Bruce wanted him, 'But maybe we shouldn't jump into anything.'

Clark let out a sigh of frustration, but his smile told a different story. 'God forbid you should go jumping into anything without a plan, Bruce.' And a combination of Clark's hand tugging and his hips rolling, had Bruce gasping a sharp breath. 

'That's not fair,' Bruce whined, Jesus he was so hopeless, 'I can't think when you do that,'

'Oh, what, this?' and he punctuated the question with a much bigger roll of his hips, Bruce in no doubt of how enthusiastic they both were about what was happening.

Bruce's body thrust up into it without any permission, and he couldn't fault it's decision, it felt so fucking good. 

'Wait, sorry, I'm sorry,' Clark said abruptly, pulling back. 'I only meant to tease you.'

'Well it's working,' Bruce huffed, chasing Clark's mouth as he leaned back.

'No,' Clark said, laughing, 'I just mean, we don't have to do anything you're not ready for. This is enough, this is perfect.' He leant back in to kiss Bruce again, but softly, with a tenderness that Bruce had never realised could feel so incredible. 

'I want to be sure, that's all. I want you to be sure.'

'I know,' Clark said, smiling between kisses, 'I am, but I'll let you wait till you're sure that I'm sure.'

'Christ, you're a dork. How does the world not know how ridiculous you are.'

'They don't know me like you do.'

And that was the crux of it, really, for Bruce. He did know Clark. Loved him, probably, if he was any kind of honest. 

Maybe Clark was right about them. Maybe they were good for each other? 

Maybe Bruce didn't have to live with that darkness anymore, if Clark could light it for him.


	13. Epilogue

###  Bruce

It was summer before enough of the manor had been fixed for Bruce to move back into. And moving back into the manor meant letting in old memories. But moving into it knowing Clark would be spending at least half of his nights there, meant building new ones. Memories that might be brighter, might make the lighter memories come through stronger under their influence. 

He was taking a tour of the finished rooms, planning furniture, now that the fixtures had been done, looking forward to a double vanity in the ensuite that would finally end the misery of trying to fit two large men into one small bathroom to clean their teeth. Neither the lake house nor Clark’s apartment could offer more than claustrophobia in that way.

He also had a feeling Clark was going to lose his shit over the size of the shower - and the number of heads. 

‘Bruce!’ 

Speak of the devil.

‘Hey, Bruce, you’ll never guess who I ran into today!’

‘No, and I’m not going to. So just tell me,’ Bruce called back, Clark could no doubt see him from downstairs, but Bruce still unfortunately lacked any x-ray vision, and was left just imagining that Clark was standing at the entrance to the new foyer, and was for some reason refusing to come up.

‘Did I tell you Lois had been researching Tony Zucco being up for Parole.’ 

‘She what!’ Bruce did  _ not  _ squeak as he took off to meet Clark in the foyer.

Tony Zucco was a name he hadn’t heard in a long time. Tony Zucco who had killed Dick’s parents. Tony Zucco whom Bruce had lied and told Dick was dead, the lie Dick had never forgiven him for.

  
  


‘Ah yeah,’ Clark said sheepishly, rocking back and forth on his heels as Bruce slowed to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. ‘So I was doing some interviews in Bludhaven, and look who I met today...’

Bruce stood staring at his son, stiff and uncomfortable beside Clark. God only knew how Clark had convinced him to come anywhere near the place. Dick shoved his hands in his pockets, sending an unsure look to Clark before turning his eyes back to Bruce and lifting his chin.

‘Hey Bruce.’

‘Dick, hey,’ Bruce said, tongue heavy in his mouth, ‘Hi.’ He felt stuck between wanting to rush his son, or run away. But his eyes were fixed to him, detecting and recording every change, every sign of health or hurt he could find.

‘So,’ Clark started, Bruce hardly listening, ‘Seeing as your going to be half Kent sometime in the near future-’

‘I’m what?’

‘- And ma will never let you not bring every single member of the family to thanksgiving-’

‘I don’t celebrate thanksgiving.’

‘-I figured we should have Dick round to see the new rooms, maybe stay for dinner?’

‘Clark…’

Clark just stood, smiling that fucking smile that Bruce couldn’t say no to, one hand on the small of Dick’s back, pressing him gently forward towards Bruce.

‘Dick, I’m sorry, he’s… well he’s sort of impossible.’ Bruce said, desperate to get Dick not to be angry, but with no idea where to even start.

‘It’s okay, I ah… well I wasn’t about to let you get married and not even meet my new step-dad.’ And god help him, but Dick was smirking. Which was practically smiling. A thing Bruce hadn’t seen in such a long time. 

Except…

‘Wait, who told you we were getting married?’

‘Oh, yeah, Clark showed me the ring.’

That damn ring (bless its power to bring love back into Bruce's life) was a curse (the very opposite, honestly). 

Bruce was going to kill Clark. 

Or kiss him.

Or marry him.

Or all three, Probably. 

###  Clark

Clark stood back to watch Bruce reunite with his son. He knew he was going to be in trouble for this later. He also knew he could get himself out of it without too much of a fight. And it was worth it, to know that the thing Bruce had been so morose about lately, watching the new wing go up, reliving old memories, could be made better by simply reaching out, finding the right moment (the right person for Bruce to have that moment with)..

None of what he’d said to Dick had been a lie, not really, and he’d reached out to him with Alfred’s blessing (he assumed Alfred essentially giving him all of Dick’s information was as much a blessing as it was a call to action) feeling like maybe he’d reached a point with Bruce that he could push back against some of the secrets. 

Bruce was looking at him with that fond exasperation he always wore when he looked at Clark, only now it hid a gratitude Bruce was incapable of voicing, still somehow completely betraying his feelings. Clark loved him so much he ached with it. His fingers twitched with the idea that it was finally the right time to dig out his dad’s wedding ring, the ring he had resized for Bruce and then hidden in his sock drawer months ago. 

And if he could swallow his fear and get the question out soon, Lois was gonna owe him fifty bucks. 

What better reason to let himself have everything he ever wanted; a family, a home, a place to belong.

  
  


And Bruce, right at the centre of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Check out the collection on tumblr [superbatreversebang](https://superbatreversebang.tumblr.com/) So much great content!
> 
> And my tumblr here [darter-blue](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/darter-blue)
> 
> Drop a comment - I love to hear from you! Comments feed my soul ❤


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